


A Sailor Went to Sea

by YellowDistress



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath of Suicide Attempt, Alternate reality travel, Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Endgame Fix-It, Fix-It, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Suicide Attempt, Tony Stark Acting as Peter Parker's Parental Figure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-02-07 07:31:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 92,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18616018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YellowDistress/pseuds/YellowDistress
Summary: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference." -Elie WieselPeter watched what happened on that battleground, unable to intervene as Tony snapped his fingers.Peter watched as a hero was torn from the face of the earth, though he supposed they didn't deserve him in the first place.Peter cut his hand to call Lilith.Peter made that wish to bring him back from an unfitting grave.





	1. Long Way From Shore

**Author's Note:**

> I know we're all really sad. But I've written this fix-it. Well, I've plotted it. I've spent the past few days piecing my ideas together. I haven't slept much, plotting this out. Trying to get it outlined before I began to write. I know I have other WIPs. But it's almost summer and I can do this. I love you guys. Please read the warnings below.
> 
> WARNING:  
> 1) This will deal with the aftermath of a suicide attempt. Which is very serious and can be very hard for some people to deal with/read so be careful, please. The reason I used this is because this movie WAS VERY SERIOUS. It was a big deal. Mourning is a big deal. So this is your warning, that this story will delve into that. 
> 
> 2) This story will be dark at times. But it's a fix-it, so you don't have to worry, we will get our happy ending. It's just, I want to do this right. I don't want to make light of what happened in canon. So we have to get through the hurtful bits. If you choose to continue to read, beware. Maybe even wait until the initial shock of the movie wears off before you read. Because it's going to be sad.
> 
> 3) There's character death at the beginning, cause YOU KNOW. But since it's a fix-it, it won't last long. But we gotta build the story first. I didn't use the warning cause it's only temporary.
> 
> 4) Final warning: THIS CONTAINS SPOILERS. As you can see. Which is why I've tagged it. But this is my fix-it fic. My therapy. This is me putting pieces together to make my own. 
> 
> I love you guys. I hope you enjoy. ❤

 

_"We won.”_

_“We won.”_

_“Please...”_

Peter swallowed the pill that was forced into his hand.

 

_“It’s anxiety, PTSD…Mrs. Parker, your nephew is struggling. He needs help.”_

The handful had come and had been swallowed dry and Peter had woken up with needles in his arms, and Doctor Strange’s hands on his face. Peter had vomited for two days straight. Peter had almost drowned in it, in what had opened its arms to him, in a face that lost all light. Peter had – he had – he had…Stopped existing, for just a moment. His own doing. But Doctor Strange had put a stop to it, had rescued him. Only to trade him off to a new cell full of different types of monsters. Memories of weekends, of having his own room, of being his own person. Of living, and living, and being happy. Peter remembered it…and then remembered nothing.

 

“You know,” His psychiatrist, the one that came to the Compound (his prison, because his aunt couldn’t be home all the time…the Avengers felt this weird _obligation_ – ), “Yesterday you took it, no problem, what was different about today?”

 

Peter bit the inside of his lip. The difference…Was in the folds of the sky, the colors, and the way things looked…generally speaking. The difference was in something else entirely, and Peter gripped the arm rests below his fingers, the fabric threatened to give way under his hands, they were alone in the room. She scared him, because sometimes she told Aunt May stuff. He didn’t know what stuff, but…just stuff. Things to keep an eye on. Barnes and Wilson had been following him, after that one Thursday, the bad one, right after he had been allowed to get out of bed. When the doctors had decided his body was recovered enough from the pills, Aunt May’s pills, that he had taken.

 

God, she had cried.

 

She had said she was sorry.

 

Peter averted his eyes.

 

“It’s sunny today,” Peter was bouncing his leg, he wouldn’t be when the meds kicked in, “It makes things dull, and tired, and I wanted – I just wanted today to be sunny.”

 

Doctor Purple (it wasn’t really purple, Peter called her that, it was Puddle, but Purple sounded better) sighed.

 

“You can’t skip a day, you know that with these meds comes a routine and – “

 

“I know,” Peter interrupted, “It’s all…pharmaceutical. Science, I like chemistry. If you guys would let me go back to school, maybe I could actually enjoy it again, you know? That homebound teacher doesn’t know anything, she doesn’t know shit – “

 

Doctor Purple interrupted, “Peter.”

 

“Crap,” He corrected, “Comment still stands. She doesn’t know how to do chemistry, and that was my science for this year. I might not get to graduate on time…Because I was in the hospital for so long. No one trusts me. Aunt May won’t let me leave the Compound because of your suggestions.”

 

Doctor Purple raised an eyebrow…

 

“Do you think our suggestions are wrong?”

 

Peter ground his teeth.

 

She continued, “Do you think what you did…Do you think your aunt shouldn’t be worried about you?”

 

“Don’t do that,” Peter croaked, “That was three months ago. We had – we had only been back home a week…And there was the funeral, and I was dying. I was dying, you don’t understand what he was. You _don’t_ …”

 

His voice broke off. The poetics of it…Peter died in his arms, and was it supposed to come back? Wasn’t it…well, the older died first. But this wasn’t fair. Peter looked away, he would have – no that thought was wrong, it was what led him there in the first place. But that first week had been so _bad_. And the sleeping pills had been right there. He hadn’t been thinking, he knew now it had been stupid. It had been an impulsive mistake that had cost him his freedom and his aunt’s peace of mind. Now they were all drowning in this never-ending sea of recovery. Recovery. Recovery. That was all he heard anymore. He could have gagged on it. Vomited it up. Doctor Strange having them pump his stomach, just like that, Doctor Strange making him vomit into the basin thing, plastic still smelled like death to him.

 

Peter wondered still, how he had known.

 

Doctor Purple said, “I do understand. And I understand that you are still in need of a stress-free environment and being here…Upstate at the Compound with access to these facilities is better for you. There’s fresh air, there’s a modified school schedule, there’re the dogs Miss Potts has the shelter bring by for you every once in a while.”

 

“Oh therapy dogs make it all better,” Peter whispered, blinking.

 

“Would you prefer Miss Potts not do that? Or maybe not send her weekly updates on herself and Morgan?”

 

Peter inhaled, “Why’re you putting words in my mouth? I love them…And I like my updates. Morgan…you know, she already knows her time tables and she’s only five? She’s…she’s awesome, and I…But you know if I could actually leave to go visit, that’d be better. But I can’t leave without permission, and you’ve got Mister Barnes following me around. That’s not his job, Doctor Purple. His job is to be a hero, not a babysitter.”

 

“He doesn’t seem to mind,” She said, “He wants to help.”

 

“Only because they feel obligated,” Peter insisted, “Only because Mister Stark gave a shit about me. Because – because he cared about me, and I cared about him and…I’m not Morgan, Doctor Purple, I didn’t lose a father. They don’t have to take care of me.”

 

She tilted her head, “Are you sure? Are you sure you didn’t lose a father?”

 

He had lost Richard. Ben. Tony.

 

The gap widened, and Peter shut his eyes. He murmured, “I just wanna go home. To Queens.”

 

This place…it was a monument to what once was. Peter was locked inside, to be Tony’s relic that had to be preserved, and for what? Peter didn’t want to be dead anymore, it had only been for a few moments, and he had screwed up and now he would never be able to escape the adults in his life that wanted to protect him from his own hand. Peter was grounded within that…that he was better and deserved to get to go home. He knew he had scared them, and it had been wrong. Doctor Strange had opened the door, had hit a limp body on the bathroom floor, he had –

 

“You will, Peter.”

 

That was how they ended for the day.

 

Every day was the same. Thirty minutes, every day.

 

Peter walked down the corridors afterward, emerging above the glass windows that overlooked the courtyard and the grassy area outside. He saw figures sparring on the field, and he didn’t have to look twice to recognize Bucky Barnes and Sam Wilson throwing punches at one another. Peter leaned against the railing, longing to ask to join, but he knew the answer. Peter could use the gym. Could run on the treadmill, lift weights. But throwing punches was not allowed. He didn’t know why. He didn’t ask anymore. They had said no, and it never budged. Peter cried within it.

 

He tilted his head as Bucky managed to knock Sam’s feet out from under him and Sam flipped him off in response.

 

Peter felt his wrists for webshooters that hadn’t been there since…well…since they had –

 

_“We won.”_

But they hadn’t won.

 

Not really, anyway. Not in the way Peter had wanted or needed.

 

The moment swallowed him whole – _the bathroom, the bright lights, his tear stained face, a week of misery, of a burial, of drowning, the pills, they’re right there, be brave Peter, they’re right there, they’re right there, they’re right there, be brave_ – May Parker’s name and Peter, the chalky texture, the floor, and the rug, and the smell of May’s shampoo forever drowning in that and that and that, and then nothing at all – but the tube and vomiting, and Doctor Strange, and Doctor Banner who didn’t look like himself anymore…A world of nothing and everything all at once and –

 

_“Swallow.”_

_“Breathe.”_

_“Peter, I know it hurts, but you gotta breathe.”_

He flinched from the memory. From war. From being in the soul stone. From five years lost. Turning to ash, and Mister Stark’s arms. From winning, but not really winning. He flinched back from all of it and turned from the window where they were sparring. Doctor Strange had known, and this obligation they all had…it was something that should have been reserved for Morgan. Not for him. Peter grabbed at his collar, he tugged it downward, he breathed inward. He remembered a tube in his throat, and confusion.

 

“Peter.”

 

Friday’s voice made him nearly jump out of his skin. He looked up at the ceiling and questioned sharply, before shutting his eyes and rubbing them, “Y-yeah?”

 

“You aunt is here, in the lobby. She has lunch for you.”

 

Peter’s chest fluttered with newfound excitement. Aunt May came almost every day, but she still worked. Still had to pay rent, despite a fund that Mister Stark had apparently set up for Peter…in the case of his death, but she refused to touch it, not until Peter was eighteen. It was meant to pay for school, but there was so much in there. Too much. Peter sometimes felt sick at the very thought of it. He rushed down the hall and down the stairs towards the entrance with the giant glass doors. Sure enough, there she was, her hair clipped back and still wearing scrubs from work. She turned at the sound of his feet, and he smiled at her, immediately wrapping his arms around her neck. She came when she could, but he missed seeing her all the time. He missed being home with her, having movie nights.

 

But she believed this was the safest place for him…even though he was constantly trying to reassure her he could come home.

 

Every time she visited, he felt new hope that maybe she would change her mind. That she would want him back.

 

“Hey baby,” She said over his shoulder, before she pulled away and placed a hand on the side of his face, patting it. She held up the bag in her hand and continued, “I’ve got you Delmar’s.”

 

“Squished flat?”

 

“Always,” She grinned, handing the bag over. Peter took it gratefully, immediately moving towards the small seating area to the side. She followed behind him and Peter kneeled beside the coffee table before sitting on his bottom and dumping the contents of the bag out onto it. He unwrapped the paper and just before he could take his first bite she questioned him gently, “So, how’d it go with Doctor Puddle?”

 

“Purple,” Peter corrected, and she rolled her eyes because she thought the nickname was disrespectful, “And it was…as usual.”

 

“As usual,” She echoed, “Is that good or bad?”

 

Peter raised an eyebrow and she continued, “I can never tell, Pete.”

 

He didn’t reply immediately. Instead he picked some sesame seeds off the top of his bun. He chewed the inside of his mouth, mind flitting back to the glass window, the sparring, the memories – _we won, we won, we won_ – God he had been so naïve. So…just stupid. It was stupid. Peter tilted his head downward, he wracked his brain for it, for what he was looking for. He wasn’t sick anymore, but sometimes when he opened his mouth he felt like Aunt May still thought he was. He shivered a bit. Peter didn’t know how to speak and not walk on glass.

 

Peter didn’t know how to talk to her anymore, because she analyzed everything he said.

 

“It’s good,” He lied, smiling.

 

She hummed, grabbing a chip from his bag after opening them. Peter swallowed thickly and awkwardly tapped his finger on the table, “So good, in fact I…well, I wanna come home.”

 

Aunt May paused in her bite. She lowered the chip from her mouth and stared at Peter a long moment, taking in his face. He felt like a bug, a lot now. Under a microscope. Being watched and watched and watch. Peter cleared his throat, almost awkwardly and went on, “I think I can now, you know? Because, things are getting better. The past few months, I’ve been doing good, Aunt May. I’ve done everything you guys have told me to do. I listen.”

 

There was a breath, “Peter, that doesn’t – honey, doing everything you’re told, going through the motions, that doesn’t mean you’re better.”

 

“But – “ Peter felt lost. He always felt so lost, when trying to explain this, “I take my medicine, I-I go to my sessions with Doctor Purple. I do what you guys want, I get my school work finished. I should get to come home now.”

 

She leaned forward and took his arm, “This is a process. A process you and I are going to get through, with help. But a part of the process is being here, out of the city, getting to have access to the resources Pepper is giving to us and the other Avengers.”

 

“They’re only giving me the time of day because of Mister Stark,” Peter insisted, pulling away from her to scoot a bit from the coffee table, his back hitting the corner of the chair behind him as he crossed his arms over his chest petulantly, “They feel like they have to, because – because _whatever_. They’re not interested in being my friends. They…they’re wasting their time, like I told Doctor Purple, I’m not Morgan.”

 

Aunt May frowned, “No, you’re not Morgan. But you’re Peter and you meant something to Tony. Which means you mean something to his friends. It’s not obligation. It’s love, and it…it can transcend through people.”

 

“You don’t love by association,” Peter mumbled under his breath.

 

She sighed again, this time looking away, she then pointed to the sandwich, “C’mon. Eat something.”

 

Peter scooted back towards the food. She took another chip, and a pause flitted between them and he knew something was on the tip of her tongue. He expected her to continue the conversation, to argue more, but instead what she said seemingly formed out of the blue without much of a warning, just as his food filled his mouth and he started to chew.

 

“Stephen is coming by.”

 

Peter almost choked.

 

“Doctor Strange?”

 

She nodded, and he went on, voice cracking, “Why?”

 

“Because like the others, he cares about you,” Aunt May said, “And he wants to see you. So he’s going to come visit. It’ll be good for you to see him.”

 

Peter gulped the bread down. His mind twisted. His collar felt too tight again on his throat, he felt too smothered behind it. He remembered Doctor Strange being there when he came to the waking world, hour after hour, so vague and lost and Peter had been gasping…Barely breathing…a tube and throwing up, and it was disgusting, but Aunt May had been crying a lot. Doctor Strange had shouldered a lot of it. It was weird, because Peter remembered. Remembered him, in that place, his magic glowing. Giving Peter something to look at. A yellow light.

 

_“I’ve fought these inner wars too.”_

_Peter stared, where he was lying against the pillow. He hadn’t spoken since waking up. Since processing what he had done. Since Aunt May had asked over and over again ‘why, why, why?’_

_“They’re hardships, Peter.”_

_The wrist band was itchy. It had his name. An alarm that would sound if he left the room. He knew, he had tried._

_Peter’s throat finally opened. He finally found words, “I wanna go home.”_

_“You will,” Doctor Strange replied, “But you’ve got to get better first.”_

_Peter’s face contorted, “I can’t. I can’t get better from this, he’s – “_

_His teeth met his lips and he bit down and down and down, chewing the tears away. Swallowing them, it tasted like copper. Doctor Strange had never been tender, he had seemed arrogant. But he looked at Peter, like a broken little object. Peter’s mind wracked for an explanation. Something to fight off the disease._

_“I was so stupid,” Peter laughed bitterly at himself, “We won…we won…I was so…”_

_Peter’s chest quaked, he glared though at his own emotions._

_“You don’t need to feel ashamed,” Doctor Strange said._

_The boy tilted his head._

_“I’m not,” Peter answered, “I’m just…empty.”_

Just like the bottle.


	2. Merrily, Merrily, Merrily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Strange was amused though, while Peter was submerging, “You sound bitter.”
> 
> “I didn’t use to be,” Peter’s voice was sincere, small and young, as he looked at Strange.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise my other WIPs will be updated next. I just kept writing, cause I'm still using this as therapy haha (also I have a peeve of leaving stories on chapter one for some reason?), but I hope you guys enjoy the second chapter! Let me know what you think! ❤

_“Let me leave.”_

_Doctor Strange looked back at him, from where he was standing in the doorway. The alarm on his wrist had sounded out throughout the hospital, a hospital that had been made aware that Peter was a mutant. Patient confidentiality was the only thing keeping his secret alive. Peter was tired of white walls, white floors, a white ceiling. Not being able to breathe. He was tired. He was sick and tired and Peter nearly vomited at the thought of staying another week in the psyche ward of the hospital, with his aunt and Doctor Strange and Miss Potts coming to visit. With the Avengers sending gifts, with smothering and smothering and smothering…_

_Strange looked at him like a wild animal. Peter rarely saw him in normal civilian clothing._

_But he seemed too calm at the same time. His eyes deceived him, but he was a doctor after all, he knew how to hide it. Peter could hear his heart picking up. The pace, the breathing, the way he put his hands in his pockets to hide their forever shaking, the shaking that was never going to go away. He and Strange had those conversations now, against Peter’s will, when a psychiatrist would come to his hospital room. When they had put a feeding tube in him because he wouldn’t eat. Then he had ripped it out because he was a bad patient. A patient they had labeled as having depression, PTSD, severe paranoia and anxiety._

_Peter had read his chart._

_“Go lay back down.”_

_When Aunt May was in the room, he tried to smother the anger inside of him, but when she was gone it welled up. Peter grabbed the foot of the bed to steady his body because he had tensed to lunge, but he couldn’t. It was as if his chest was filled with fluid, his stomach empty. His body shaking. Like drinking too many energy drinks, but not enough food, that worry and sweaty fear that came along with it. Peter’s back was damp from the strain of standing so long. Of having tried to run away before the alarm went off and Doctor Strange and nurses had come running. Doctor Strange had told them he could handle it, but could he?_

_“Why are you here?” Peter was holding himself up against the foot of the bed, “Why are you **here**? This isn’t…I barely even knew you and you’re here and…”_

_His face seemingly softened, “Because you need someone.”_

_“Someone,” Peter coughed the word out like it was venom, “I had someone. For all of two seconds. And you know what? You knew what was going to happen…”_

_Peter paused, gathering the courage to open his chest – to open it wide – anger, it boiled over and over and over and then it turned into a deeper sort of molten sludge. He stood straighter, gathering the strength from his malnourishment that he had inflicted upon himself and he nearly screamed. The words pushed their way out, Peter felt eaten alive, and he had been the past several weeks of wondering what they could have done differently. Of their entire worlds – people, the Compound, their home – it was all coming to an end with a damned memorial._

_“You knew, you saw,” Peter gritted the words out, before his voice raised into almost a vile shout and he gripped his fists at his sides, “You saw!”_

_Doctor Strange shook his head slowly, “And what would you have had me done? There was one future. One chance. He knew that.”_

_“You knew better!” Peter’s knees were shaking, “You knew! I-I…you could’ve told me, I could’ve done something, I could’ve done it for him!”_

_Strange blinked, voice blunt, “He would have never let you.”_

_Then he thought, and continued, “It would have killed him.”_

_Peter’s mouth snarled._

_“What do you think it’s doing to me?”_

Chalky pills.

 

Peter stood in the wind, the opening in the west wing still being put back together. They worked round the clock, Peter wasn’t supposed to be in the construction site, but he had come nonetheless, because he remembered something. There was a fuzzy wasteland in the back of his neck where the meds were kicking in too strongly. He hated how they made him feel hardly anything, but it was suppressing and suppressing, like cotton. The dirt and metal crunched under his feet as he climbed over debris. They had been moving along, Peter was meant to stay in the portion of the Compound they had repaired. This was off-limits and yet he had come.

 

His eyes scanned, ignoring the workers in hard hats, who too ignored him. A wall had been put up, where water had threatened to drown him. His cushion of nightmares had come from that place, wrapping a gauntlet in his arms, fire raining down as he curled onto his side and heard it _thap_ into the ground around his head. It had been like the old war movies. Peter had been a soldier, something he had never considered being before. It had always been ‘hero’ but he supposed they were synonyms.

 

Nails in his skin would have hurt less, where he kneeled. Where it happened, his fingers sliding over the ground, the dirt. Aunt May had gotten distracted, Peter had found his own way from the lobby. His mind wracked. Those men worked so hard, to rebuild something that should have been leveled. Peter didn’t believe it had a place anymore, not there, he would never be able to see it the same. The blue, falling, collapsing, the explosions.

_“Hi, I-I’m Peter Parker.”_

_“Hey Peter Parker, got something for me?”_

 

The darkness that had formed under his eyes from instant shock, horror, he was in the middle of a warzone. A child caught up in a battle that didn’t make very much sense to him. A soldier, no one viewed him as something small anymore. But now, once the dust had settled in that place…it was different. Completely different. All they could see was a child, not a veteran, not someone who had laid curled in a ball while the world went up in flames and had opted for cowardice, when he had been telling himself it was brave – the pills were right there.

 

_“It’s me, it’s Peter.”_

 

The dirt was blackened.

 

“Construction zone is off limits, Itsy.”

 

Peter whirled from where he was kneeling. Doctor Strange was standing there, dressed in his normal clothing…looking civilian, too much like that memory in the hospital room where the world was crashing down. After Peter had made the mistake that had landed him in a world of overprotectiveness and distrust. Peter swallowed, feeling the dirt squeeze in his hand. This wasn’t healthy, the obsession, but he worried…Soon the workers would reach the spot where it happened. They’d cover it with concrete, with dirt, like it never existed. Like Mister Stark hadn’t – like he hadn’t evaporated and then exhaled, inhaled and –

 

_“I’m sorry.”_

Peter almost flinched at the memory, Miss Potts, Colonel Rhodes. Hands touching him, that night…He hadn’t gotten to go straight home to May, there had been cuts and bruises, things to look over, doctors pulling his suit from his body, too many hands. That was when Doctor Strange had shown any sort of caring towards him, had told the doctors to be gentle, had been ordering them around. Peter blinked heavily at the memory, against the sunlight that illuminated Doctor Strange’s face.

 

_“Make them – make them stop! Stop it – stop touching me – stop!”_

_“Give him a second to breathe.”_

 

They had barely given him a moment. Then the sponge was brushing over his skin, there was dirt, they needed to check for wounds. Peter was – well, the hysterics, and they thought he was hurt – but he wasn’t hurt that bad. They had worried he was in shock. Peter looked at the dirt – _ashes? Peter had been…dusty…ashes…they said…they kept saying_ – under his fingers. The bulldozer started beeping several yards away. Peter finally answered, the man’s face seemingly glowing in the sunlight.

 

“I live in a construction zone…I don’t see why I can’t come look.”

 

Footsteps moved towards him. He was beckoned to stand, and he did, because if he didn’t comply he usually just got told what to do. A hand helped him, grabbing his elbow as he did so. Peter remembered becoming himself again, and Doctor Strange – his yellow – it had been the first thing Peter had seen. It was glorious, and beautiful, that light after being in the dark so long. Now, he looked into eyes that for some reason held an odd…dedication, and Peter assumed it was because – well it was probably because Peter had blamed him, had wanted to know why, why he had let it happen – Peter could have…

 

“Maybe it would be okay, if it wasn’t always here,” Doctor Strange hummed, almost sounding disinterested, but he had a bad habit of doing that, of making the big things seem little, the things he really wanted to talk about. He would pretend they weren’t important. Peter blinked a few good times as his mind tried to play catch up and Strange said, “I know why you come to this spot. I don’t want you to get attached.”

 

Peter blinked, “Attached to dirt or where a corpse was?”

 

It was…a really weird joke, in retrospect.

 

Strange breathed deeply, face disapproving. Peter bit his lip, and realized that was wrong, and then again, built on a realization of – he was trying to get better. Peter folded his hands, burying himself in his sweatshirt, despite it being summer time. It was cold inside. They always had the air blasting, because the construction workers would come in and…Bucky hated the heat, he kept the air on all the time. Peter almost cringed at his joke when his brain processed it, maybe it was just the medicine, sometimes he didn’t think.

 

“Um,” Peter cleared his throat, “I just…I sorta wanna put something here, but they said…they said they’re going to rebuild the west wing. I wanna put – I dunno, you know how he talked about those…what’re those flowers that look…they look like night time.”

 

There was no recognition in Strange’s eyes. Of course, he wouldn’t know. He hadn’t known Mister Stark long either. Peter began to move away from the place where a soul had touched into the edges of the atmosphere, where eyes had opened wide, and skin – it had smelled like it was burning. Peter glanced back one more time, before his eyes flitted to the water. He tried not to be burdened, he forgave Doctor Strange, he just did not understand. And yet he asked, “What’re you doing here?”

 

It didn’t sound angry. And Doctor Strange didn’t look upset for being asked it.

 

“I’ve heard you’ve been doing well,” Doctor Strange said, Peter wondered if his lies were not as transparent as he thought, “I ask your aunt for updates, regularly, before you ask who told me that. You always ask such…silly questions. Anyway, I’d like you to come to the Sanctum with me for a bit.”

 

Peter stopped walking, brows tugging downward, “They don’t let me leave the Compound.”

 

“Don’t worry, I have special permission,” There was hardly any hesitation as the portal opened, forming out of thin air, the yellow, Peter remembered it. Peter longed for it. For that before, the before everything. If Peter could have chosen to remain asleep, if it had meant Tony could be alive, he would never see the glorious yellow again. He would have melted into that blackness and been none the wiser. Of curling into a ball, of blue falling from the sky, of stones in his arms, all the colors, colors, light shining up Mister Stark’s arm and then –

 

Doctor Strange stepped through. Peter had a question on his tongue, one that asked what the Sanctum had for him. Why they would go there. Why they were allowed to leave when Peter had been trying to get to leave for months now. The round the clock construction crew had become distant friends, people he didn’t really speak to, but he pretended. He had named them himself, and they casted glances as he stepped through a curious portal, but the world had changed so much. There weren’t questions anymore.

 

This was the norm. Peter’s insanity still…frightening.

 

Peter smelled old books and solid air first. He had been to the Sanctum a few times, in passing. Since everyone had created a pact he knew nothing of to try and keep him alive, to protect him from himself. Peter shifted from foot to foot, awkwardly as the portal closed, the yellow disappeared, and he was there. A part of something with someone else. Peter’s eyes flitted to the ceiling, where dust particles danced in the sunlight. It echoed off his brown eyes, warmth. Doctor Strange cleared his throat, moving amongst the books as he called over his shoulder, “Your aunt said you’re trying to learn chemistry.”

 

“Trying, and failing,” Peter provided, “The homebound teacher doesn’t…understand it.”

 

Peter moved to his own row of books, none looked scholarly. They all appeared to have vague markings on the fronts. Strange seemed to chuckle, turning the corner as he watched Peter’s finger slide among the books. To touch them, and search for something other than that dirt a corpse had sat upon. A voiceless mouth, empty eyes. There hadn’t been a goodbye, Peter fell into that lie. Strange was amused though, while Peter was submerging, “You sound bitter.”

 

“I didn’t use to be,” Peter’s voice was sincere, small and young, as he looked at Strange. The words were deceptive to a child though, they were too old to be in his mouth, “I think…you know, I was nice.”

 

Doctor Strange tsked, “You are nice. Nicer than me.”

 

Peter didn’t feel nice anymore. He thought…he had once been decent. But now he looked in the sky, where the overlapping corners came into focus, where blue had rained down, where he had folded over onto his side. Some nights he woke up choking on fire, because he dreamed of his throat being sliced, his head severing. Then some nights he dreamed he had known – had put the gauntlet on himself – had sacrificed what needed to be sacrificed.

 

Peter had just wanted to save him.

 

“Why am I here? I don’t think to talk about…being nice or chemistry.”

 

He studied Peter’s face a few moments, and Peter felt a lot like a bug, his hand pausing on the books – _demonic literature, bargaining –_ things that made Peter’s skin crawl with temptation to open as he waited for Doctor Strange to speak. Doctor Strange leaned against the shelf, stepping closer as to be the center of attention. Silence roared, then a response as Peter’s mind tried to make up what he was thinking, and he dreamed while being awake until the explanation came too simply, “I check on you from time to time, I thought this had been established.”

 

“Established as guilt,” Peter theorized aloud, “You knew the one future. The winning future.”

 

Doctor Strange didn’t look angry or hurt, he looked unfazed. Peter went on, “I know everyone thinks they’re doing Mister Stark a service by taking care of the kid that tried to – whatever – and…I get it. You made a hard decision.”

 

_I just wish it would have been different._

His eyes lingered on the books. Magic. Peter had asked before, about things to be done, but they weren’t…well, anyway, Doctor Strange sighed and Peter waited for him to push further, “It’s alright for you to be angry. Anger is a part of grieving.”

 

“It’s stupid,” Peter’s cheeks burned. Anger was stupid, it got people hurt. He smothered that, with a pillow, when he could and he looked at Doctor Strange with eyes that wanted him to understand, the flecks of gold melting, Peter was plummeting inward, “It’s _stupid_ …a-and…I wanna go home. I wanna go home so bad, and no one will let me. But I’ve been doing everything that everyone says to do, and I still can’t go home. I made a mistake, I don’t want to be dead, Doctor Strange.”

 

“But do you want to be in his place?”

 

Fuck.

 

Peter’s eyes shut, then opened, clouded, “Is there no one you’d rather trade places with?”

 

He breathed, “Because…if that’s wrong…that was just me…caring. Is still me caring…It didn’t have to happen. And you won’t – you won’t let me do anything about it, won’t let me read your books. You just, you check on me then shut me out, and I know what it is, I can read you.”

 

“My books are of no use to you,” Strange responded, “Not with this recovery.”

 

But there would be no need for recovery, not if he had the books. He repeated.

 

“Why am I here?”

 

Doctor Strange breathed deeply, and Peter supposed this was fumbling – tugging – it had happened a lot to Peter his first few weeks with Doctor Purple. The questions she would ask were immensely difficult to answer. He didn’t like them. Peter beat around them when he could, as not to be direct. It had been an accident. That was it at first. An accident, to swallow the pills. Then a mistake. Accidents and mistakes were similar, but there was a difference in there. One was intentional, the other was not.

 

It had been a mistake. He didn’t want to die.

 

“Pepper wants me to bring you by. She’s in the city for the week, staying in her reserved penthouse.”

 

Peter’s stomach dropped. He straightened a bit. Pepper Potts (was it Stark? Oh…Peter had never asked, not in three months – ) and her gentle face. Her hands, the ones that had pushed his hair away from his face like Aunt May’s had. At the funeral, when she had taken his hand, had told him how much he meant to Tony.

 

_“You were the first thing on his lips when he came home.”_

Later Peter would learn those words had been ‘I lost the kid’. Words uttered to Steve Rogers who no longer existed either, or was somewhere else entirely, or…Anyway, Sam Wilson always had the shield now.

 

Miss Potts funded a lot of his medical treatment. She took a lot of interest in him, even though she didn’t know him too well. Peter had grown used to her presence, when things were – before The War. But it was different then, and they all knew it was. Miss Potts treated him with love and respect and she cared about him. Sent him letters and gifts and pushed his treatment further. But there were words on her lips Peter could not forget, the words he clung to – words –

 

_“Rest.”_

His breath hitched.

 

“I don’t…” Peter stumbled over the words, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

 

Strange raised an eyebrow, “And why not? She sends you messages, videos, updates. What’s so different about visiting her in person?”

 

“It’s – it’s the…I want to understand. I want to understand how she could let him go…how she could just…but it doesn’t make sense to me.”

 

“I don’t expect you to understand,” Doctor Strange said, “You’re young, this stuff doesn’t – “

 

Peter interrupted, sounding almost offended, “Don’t talk to me like that. Like I’m five. I know I’m a teenager, I’m in high school, I’m a kid or whatever, but I’m not stupid. Maybe I don’t understand this – this battle move or whatever you guys have where you can just let go, I can’t. I can’t let it go…”

 

And he just kept going, “Isn’t that why I took those pills? I can’t let shit go? Why I’m mean now?”

 

“You’re not mean,” Strange’s voice was clinical, a doctor, always a doctor, and so different from Mister Stark who would have been angry with him by now, “And you took those pills because you were in a bad moment.”

 

_The sink was filling with water._

_Tooth brush laid out._

_Sleep. Peter, just go to sleep, you gotta go to sleep._

_May Parker – orange bottle – sleep._

_Forever? – be brave, braver, Peter, just fucking be brave, it’s edging to hypocrisy –_

_Peter’s school book was opened on the bathroom counter._

_‘In a word, I was too cowardly to do what I knew to be right, as I had been too cowardly to avoid doing what I knew to be wrong.’_

_“We won.”_

 

Peter couldn’t let go.

 

“If it was just a moment why is this so hard?” Peter whispered, “Why won’t anyone trust me? Why can’t I go home and why – why can’t it just be the way things were? I’m no ones obligation, no one owes Mister Stark anything by taking care of me, I take care of myself, I can if you guys would let me. And now Miss Potts wants to see me and I just…I don’t _understand_.”

 

Doctor Strange stepped back and held out a hand, “Well, the only way to understand is to see her.”

 

The edges folded. Peter glanced at the books, the ones he knew held what was supposedly useless to him. His mind malfunctioned, but he followed Doctor Strange forward.

 

Reading material. It offered a solace he could not reach.

 

…

 

Pepper Potts lived in simplicity, but also magnificence.

 

The penthouse that she stayed in when in New York, Peter could only describe it as luxuriant but minimalistic. A few decorations here and there, an open floor plan and large windows overlooking the city of restlessness. They appeared from Strange’s magic, in the kitchen, and she was already waiting. Peter had worried they would startle her, but there she was, cup of tea in hand.

 

She had hugged Peter around the neck.

 

Pepper reminded Peter of school, of watching JFK’s funeral. Of holding a daughter’s hand as she walked down steps in her dark clothing, a face of bravery. Holding up an entire country. A country she didn’t owe a damn thing to. Peter couldn’t speak, initially, she made him nervous. It was almost like when he had first started his sessions with Doctor Purple. But when they sat on the couch together, Miss Potts held his hand. She didn’t let it go, for the first few minutes they were alone in the living area, Doctor Strange having stayed a bit to the back to give them a moment of processing.

 

She was the first to break the quiet.

 

“Are they treating you well?”

 

Peter replied, automatic, “Yeah.”

 

Pepper looked like she knew it was a made-up answer. Made-up was the wrong word, more so, she knew it was a reflex. A survival tactic. Something learned when trying to go through the motions of a recovery he didn’t fully understand. She set her tea on the table in front of them before she spoke, “I spoke to your aunt. She says there’s some trouble with the homebound teacher and chemistry – “

 

“We don’t gotta talk about chemistry,” Why was that so important that day? “I…how are you?”

 

Her face was stern. Right, he was there to talk about himself, even if he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to talk about Peter Parker anymore, he was always talking about himself to Doctor Purple.

 

Every day. Thirty minutes.

 

Peter corrected, “They treat me nice.”

 

She didn’t look completely satisfied, but enough to nod her head. Eyeing the boy, she squeezed his hand even tighter with her own. She licked her lips, and Peter couldn’t quite dissect what it was they were exchanging. He had a deep agony for a man that was gone. Tony Stark was gone, but he hadn’t been Peter’s family. Not his father, like Morgan. Pepper wasn’t his mother. And yet the void left behind felt a lot like Uncle Ben had. But it was weighted differently, along with war wounds. Burning skies, and folded edges, the edges, they were always pulling down.

 

Doctor Strange was shuffling in the kitchen. Peter tried to ignore the fact he knew the man was listening in.

 

“How’s Happy?” Peter asked.

 

“He’s fine,” Pepper answered, shrugging slightly, “He’s…as well as can be expected. I’ve given him time off, but he works like a crazy person, so he hasn’t utilized much of it. He comes to check on us, when he can, but he has been handling stuff at SI for me. He likes to be busy, I think it helps him cope.”

 

She paused, “He misses you. Asks how you’re doing all the time.”

 

Happy couldn’t look at him.

 

_The white walls._

_They were rushing the Compound wing being repaired. A lot of it had to do with the fact they were trying to get him out of the hospital, but he had to be placed somewhere safe. The Compound was that somewhere. Peter dreaded it, but he wanted the band off his wrist. He wanted to be able to walk around. Soon he would want too much._

_Happy’s hand had found the back of his neck. Had squeezed._

_“Kid, we’re here for you.”_

_Peter blinked._

_“I’m okay, Happy. Really.”_

_The hand tightened and a simple order._

_“Stop lying for our benefit.”_

It had been a funny lie, looking back, because he had so obviously not been fine. He had only just had his stomach pumped because of the pills he had taken. Even with his abilities, it had almost taken his life. Metabolism could only do so much. Doctor Strange had known – what a frightening thing. As if he was in his head, or monitoring him, or had bugged him. Peter supposed he shouldn’t question. Should just be grateful. But he was not.

 

Pepper’s eyes held something, and seemingly the conversation shifted out of nowhere as she breathed out deeply, “You haven’t been very receptive of my offers to meet. To talk…And I so wanted to talk to you. We only really communicate through technology and there are some things you can’t say over phone…over text.”

 

Peter wondered why.

 

He wasn’t…anything?

 

Peter almost flinched at her words.

 

“You were…you were something else to Tony,” Pepper started, mouth turning upward slightly, “Something else entirely…I think you were one of the best things to happen to him. To us really, because I think you inspired Morgan’s existence and I don’t know what I would do without her. Tony protected you, wanted to have you close, but was also so afraid of messing up. Sometimes he had to be reminded that mentors don’t get visitation rights.”

 

She laughed a bit and Peter felt sick, “Tony loved you. So much. He would want you to be looked after, to have access to the best of everything. I want to…I want to get to see you from time to time, to get to ask you things – to know how things are going. I want to make sure you’re okay.”

 

Peter’s stomach twisted. Rolls and rolls of waves pummeled him from within and Peter bit the inside of his mouth and lowered his head just the slightest. He wrung his hands together, purposed to his heart in a way that got him ignored. His mind lingered too long on his notions, that this wasn’t really caring. It was something else. Peter swallowed, almost tugged his hand away, but he didn’t. Instead he whispered…

 

“You don’t gotta pretend to…care. He was – he was awesome. But…just cause we were friends doesn’t mean you gotta help me. Protect me.”

 

Peter was startled when Pepper laughed a bit.

 

“You were so much more than friends. He wanted you to have everything.”

 

Someone used a crowbar on his chest. It was the day after Mister Stark had – and this – and Peter had exited a threshold of shock. When they had cleaned him up. When he had stopped shaking. When he was sitting alone in a room, curled on the window seat in a thick blanket, wearing pajamas that they had given him. Waiting for Aunt May to come. That was the day that in intervals, every six minutes, his chest opened and then closed. Painfully. He felt the rip of every fiber in his skin, in his muscle, in the bones around his own sanctum.

 

It was just like that. Peter’s face crumbled just enough to grab her attention as he looked away.

 

“Oh…Peter – “

 

Peter sucked air in through a clogged nose, that hadn’t been clogged just a moment before. He looked at Pepper, as if he had been betrayed by something, but she hadn’t done anything wrong. And yet he still felt like he had to ask her, he just…he had to know – he had to ask – it was awful – _God Peter, you’re awful_ –

 

“Why’d you tell him to rest?”

 

Peter’s voice shattered, face finally plummeting completely into anguish.

 

She didn’t hesitate to wrap her arms around him in a tight embrace. One that was similar to Morgan’s except these were not tiny arms. She must have learned it from her. Peter inhaled sharply upon the impact, closing his eyes. She whispered into his ear, trying to make him believe, and he did, but the selfish part of him didn’t.

 

“He was hurting, and he was leaving. I wanted him to know it was okay.”

 

But it wasn’t okay. Peter had wanted so desperately to keep him.

 

…

 

There were ways to get things back.

 

Ways Doctor Strange lied about.

 

In those books…A book.


	3. Red Fish, Blue Fish

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I need,” Peter took in a breath, “I need you to…”
> 
> A pause.
> 
> “I need you to use this vise to break my arm.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay! So I've been updating rather quickly on this story, but Wednesday and Thursday I've got tests so I wanted to get this posted before I gotta go for a few days. I hope you enjoy! Let me know what you think and I should be back once my finals are finished in the next couple of days. ❤❤❤ Thank you for the lovely responses!

_They wrapped him in a wool blanket, the oversized sweat shirt, he was drowning in fabric._

_Aunt May was whispering to the adults outside of the room. They had put the reactor in the water, had watched it float away that day. Night had fallen, and the rain was pattering on the glass behind his head. Peter was on a pallet, on the floor, Morgan was breathing deeply in the bed above him. She had drifted off some time ago. He supposed this told him he was still a child, because they had stuck him in the same room as her. But there were so many guests in the house that night, staying over, because it was a long drive home. They would leave in the morning. Pepper had insisted…and Peter thought maybe she didn’t want to be alone._

_Peter sat up on the pallet, pulling the blanket with him around his shoulders. He glanced hesitantly at Morgan, her lashes touching her cheeks and mouth open in the laxness of sleep. He crawled to the bedroom door, nearly causing a toy to sing. The door was cracked, and Peter stuck his index finger inside, opening it a bit more. Orange light caressed his face gently down his cheek where the bruises from the battle had nearly faded into nothing. He healed quickly, but he still felt them on his chest._

_“He isn’t doing well.”_

_Aunt May’s voice sounded shaky._

_Peter could see figures in the kitchen. Could make them out. Miss Potts was definitely touching Aunt May’s shoulder, Colonel Rhodes and Happy were leaning against the fridge. There were guests elsewhere in the house, he knew, sleeping. Peter’s heart stuttered. Aunt May looked like she had been crying. Aunt May continued, “Yesterday night he…woke up. I found him in the kitchen, just – he was under the table, and he kept talking about the sky. Blue things coming out of the sky.”_

_Colonel Rhodes lowered his head._

_The man provided, “It’s probably PTSD.”_

_“He won’t talk to me,” She said, and Peter felt his heart constrict with guilt, “He won’t tell me if he’s hurting. I know he is, but he says he isn’t. It’s like I could just shake it out of him, get him to tell me where it hurts.”_

_‘Aunt May,’ Peter thought, ‘It hurts everywhere.’_

_It reminded him of one of the nights after his parents died. He had been listening to Aunt May and Uncle Ben talk in the kitchen. Peter hadn’t spoken for a while, adjusting to his new life. He didn’t feel like a teenager, he felt as small as the slumbering Morgan right beside his head where her bed was close to the door. Peter stared at her sleeping face a moment, he swallowed. She didn’t have a dad either. Peter pressed his forehead to the doorframe, shutting his eyes tightly as he curled slightly into himself, the rain pouring and pouring._

_Peter was pouring._

_His eyes snapped open when Morgan’s small voice whispered into the darkness, “Are you crying?”_

_Blinking into it, his brain processed she had gone from sleeping soundly to being awake. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and he shook his head mutely, unable to find words. Morgan propped her head up, eyes still holding sleep._

_“Sometimes my daddy cries when he sleeps,” She said._

_Peter shivered, as if frightened of the child in front of him. Looking up at her from his place on the floor made him feel smaller, younger than she was. Even through her glassy-sleep ridden eyes he saw a wise spirit he couldn’t begin to comprehend. She scooted over on the mattress and she patted the spot beside her, “You don’t gotta sleep on the floor.”_

_He didn’t know why he got up. Why he crawled into the bed. He barely knew the four-year-old. Hardly at all. But it felt like she knew him so well, as if he had never been gone. Peter laid on his back, awkwardly staring at the ceiling, where her glowing stars were stuck and shining softly. Her hand patted his arm, tiny and fragile, and she questioned sleepily, “You’re the spider who stopped the bird-man?”_

_Peter’s head whipped in her direction._

_Her mouth upturned, “Daddy told me that story.”_

_“I am,” He croaked, finally finding words as his eyes burned more, “I was.”_

“Did you have fun?”

 

Aunt May’s voice met him as both he and Doctor Strange exited the yellow sparks. Peter looked at her, his eyes bloodshot from crying into Miss Potts’ shoulder, and Aunt May’s face instantly fell into concern. She glanced at Doctor Strange just a moment before stepping towards him and taking his face into her soft palms. They pressed into his skin, a hand felt his forehead as if for a fever. She murmured, “Hey…what happened?”

 

Peter’s head fell to the floor, and he couldn’t look at her.

 

He was more tired than embarrassed. More consumed with thoughts of things he shouldn’t have been thinking about. An idea that was wrong, that was going to get him in so much trouble if he got caught. Peter bit the inside of his mouth, he smothered it down, with the setting sun. Night was coming with their silence, their grief. Peter allowed her to be gentle with him, because it was her. It wasn’t the same as eggshells. It wasn’t like how it was with almost everyone else. Everyone who treated him like a broken machine.

 

“Nothing,” Peter responded in a murmur, finally meeting her eyes hesitantly behind his curls that were getting obnoxiously in the way, “We just – we went to go see Pepper.”

 

It wasn’t horror that struck her expression, but something else. A deep engrained sadness that they all felt at the thought of the Starks and their suffering. If Pepper could get through it, if little Morgan could, why couldn’t Peter? Maybe he just couldn’t stop thinking about the way things could have been, had they been different. No one else saw an alternative, Peter saw so many. Aunt May looked at Doctor Strange and he nodded his head. A nod that expressed it was really okay, that was _really_ what happened.

 

After the sleeping pills, Peter had become a liar.

 

_“It’s under your tongue.”_

 

_Aunt May was teary eyed. She had made Doctor Strange come, and Peter had yelled at her, because he was awful. A terrible human being, shrouded in a darkness he struggled to make sense of. He didn’t want the meds, they – they felt too odd, so violent, Peter was always angry now. He pulled the blanket further up, refused to open his mouth from where he was sitting on the corner of the bed._

 

_Doctor Strange reached out, and pinched Peter’s nose._

 

_Peter swallowed._

 

Peter had never been a good liar.

 

He hadn’t made things easy on Aunt May. Nothing had been easy on her in a long, long time. He was just…he had tried to get out of it, and had resented her for calling so many people, for asking the Avengers to help. Because it felt like she was using his heroes against him. Using them to force him to recover. But he knew in the logical parts of his brain it was his fault, she couldn’t do it alone. Peter had been a lot to handle in the angry stages of his grief.

 

She tried to hug him, but he side stepped her. She and Strange remained where they were standing as Peter put his hands in his pockets and tried to shrug it off. He nodded his head towards the stairs and said, “I think I’m gonna go shower…maybe get ready for bed.”

 

Despite being bad at lies, it came out rather smoothly. Peter took the stairs, not looking back because he knew what he was going to do was wrong. The plan came slowly and simply as he moved down the corridors of the Compound that sometimes still smelled of fresh paint. He was sure when the entire thing was finished, it would never be the way it used to be. It would feel ghostly. Sometimes it still did…And Peter inhaled deeply to try to calm his racing heart that was threatening to burst.

 

He rounded the corner to his bedroom and ran into someone’s chest.

 

Peter flinched back heavily, shock appearing on his face. Standing above him was Bucky Barnes, and Peter swallowed, as if he thought the super soldier could read his mind. Like he had any idea what Peter was doing, what he was planning. But it seemed almost convenient for him to appear, like the air had pushed him through. Peter blinked once and blinked again, at the guy who had basically been helping to babysit him for three months. Bucky cleared his throat, it was funny…All of the following, as if following a toddler that was learning to walk, it had rarely resulted in conversation.

 

“Hi,” Peter whispered.

 

Ever since Steve Rogers had gone away, Bucky’s eyes had been different. Peter waited patiently for a response, but when it finally came, it was soft. Not something he would expect from Bucky, but no one treated Peter the way they used to anymore. There was hardly any humor left in his life, just eggshells.

 

“You okay?”

 

It must have been the remnants of his breakdown earlier. Red eyes, puffy cheeks. Peter was an ugly crier. Peter breathed out slowly, before he nodded. He cleared his throat, “Yeah, yeah…Strange just – he took me on a field trip.”

“Do I need to go kick his ass?”

 

Peter actually laughed. That sounded more like the Bucky he had met in Germany. Not like the babysitter.

 

_“Get down.”_

_Peter looked from where he was sitting on the beam running through the broken debris at the west end of the Compound. Places untouched by the construction workers. Bucky was several feet below him, staring up and blinded by the sunlight. Peter had only been there a week and he was already driving the man crazy, he could see it behind his irises. Bucky and Sam were always following behind him. Peter swallowed thickly in response to the tone._

_“You hear me?” Bucky questioned, “Get down.”_

_Peter exhaled._

_“You think Imma jump?”_

_Bucky’s face remained stone. Peter continued, “Don’t worry, if I jump from this high, I won’t die. My knees will be screwed up, but nothing Doctor Strange can’t fix, I’m sure. He fixes everything and everyone, right?”_

_Peter could see he was getting impatient._

_“Get. Down. Or I’m coming up there.”_

Bucky had actually ended up sending Sam Wilson up there to retrieve him. An attack from behind. Peter had gotten more restrictions after that. And a skinned knee, but that was the extent of it. Peter shook his head in response to Bucky’s earlier questions, “Not needed. I’m okay…Just tired. I’m gonna go to bed early.”

 

“The kid who stays up until four a.m. is going to go to bed early?”

 

“Insane, I know,” Peter stepped around him, simply, lying through his teeth, “But it happens from time to time.”

 

Peter waved, quickly, one hand and he then turned and made his retreat. His room welcomed him with open arms, and he shut the door behind himself. There was no lock, they removed it the third week after Peter had refused to let anyone in and they had Colonel Rhodes knock it off its hinges. They eventually gave him a new door, but no lock. He counted himself lucky they had given him anything back at all.

 

Stupid part was, he had locked it because he was pouting. Colonel Rhodes had nearly given him a heart attack when he had kicked it in. Peter had thought they were bluffing. Being a prisoner in the place that was supposed to be his new home was difficult. But he knew deep down he was being petulant.

 

Peter grabbed his backpack from the floor. He wished he had his suit, or even webshooters, but being without it meant very little after three months of basic isolation from the alternate persona. He placed his backpack on the bed, before he laid down beside it and shut his eyes. He set an alarm on his phone, he tried to sleep off the anxiety that the plan was inducing. It was all very, very stupid. He knew. But it had to happen.

 

People moved on. But Peter never did.

 

…

 

The plan had a few steps:

 

  * Take Mister Barnes’ motorbike, despite not knowing how to drive.
  * Try to get out without being noticed.
  * Find Ned.
  * Break into Midtown High.



 

Step five was…not written down in his mind. Maybe because he had blocked it out since it weighed so heavily on his shoulders with fear. But Peter had been in worse pain, and so number five didn’t seem to be…it didn’t seem to be a huge issue. The biggest issue was Ned. Getting Ned out of his house…convince Ned to help him break into the school. The problem was, Ned was like everyone else. He looked at Peter and there was distrust. Distrust of what his intentions were, if self-harm was in the cards. Peter supposed it was, and he supposed he deserved to be distrusted. But…he had…he had to have help.

 

Peter had really hurt Ned, with those sleeping pills.

 

_Ned’s blotchy, tear stained face came into focus._

_Peter was sedated but awake enough to speak. It was more for nerves than anything, and he could hardly feel the guilt eating at him when looking at Ned. Ned, his best friend, who was crying and crying, not understanding why Peter would want to leave when they had finally been reunited. For only a few days at school. Peter sat in the bed, the band on his wrist still itched, he picked at the cotton blanket._

_“Why? Why didn’t you talk to me, man?”_

_Peter set his jaw. ‘Feel nothing’. He could feel nothing._

_“Talk about what?” Peter croaked, “The War? The battle? What do you wanna know? He died…I watched – I watched the strongest person in the universe disappear. Right from his eyes, down to his skin. You want me to tell you all that?”_

_Ned bit his lip._

_“Peter…I want you to tell me anything.”_

“You stole the Winter Soldier’s motorbike…”

 

Ned’s voice was still in disbelief, where they parked in front of the school and were trying to slip down into the basement, to the workshop below them. Peter glanced back from where he was kneeling in front of the door trying to pick the lock. He replied in a whisper, “You’ve been saying that ever since I picked you up.”

 

“And you drove it here.”

 

“I did.”

 

“Do you even know how to drive? You crashed Flash’s car, how did you drive that bike?”

 

Peter’s mouth almost turned upward. The door unlocked and Ned let out a startled sound. Right, another trick he had learned, while being locked up so long. Something Ned didn’t know about. Because Ned went to school, Ned got to be in Queens, Peter was stuck upstate all the time with the homebound teacher that couldn’t even do chemistry. Peter’s classmates knew about the suicide attempt, but they didn’t know why. PTSD from the Snap, a lot of people were suffering from it. But Peter’s ran so deep it was its own person.

 

Ned continued, when Peter didn’t answer, “Did you become a super spy in the past three months?”

 

“Oh yeah,” Peter pushed the door the rest of the way open, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. The two of them made their way down the steps as he continued without looking at his friend, “I’ve been training under Bucky Barnes. And Sam Wilson, if you count his shenanigans. They live to play pranks. Sam actually taught me the door thing though, so he could hide eggs in Bucky’s blankets.”

 

Ned cackled. Peter figured it was sick of him because of what he was about to do to Ned. Because he was about to traumatize him. Peter made a beeline towards the vise across the room on the other side of the shop. The smell of metal and wood filled the air, and Peter dropped his backpack on the ground in front of the contraption. Ned put his hands in his pockets, rocking back and forth on his heels, none the wiser. Peter looked at him, face softening a bit and maybe Ned could read that they weren’t there for an adventure.

 

His friend questioned, “Pete?”

 

Peter explained, “Ned…I gotta tell you somethin’…We’re not here for uh – for Spider-Man business. Not really. See I…I need my guy in the chair to do me a favor.”

 

Ned’s eyes moved between Peter, towards the vise, and then back again. Ned swallowed thickly, Peter could see a fear behind his eyes, but he still didn’t understand, “And what is that?”

 

“I need,” Peter took in a breath, “I need you to…”

 

A pause.

 

“I need you to use this vise to break my arm.”

 

At first, Ned paled. His face dropped into concern. It melted and left behind confusion. A laugh of disbelief passed his lips, as if he couldn’t process what Peter had just told him. Peter thought…yeah, it was weird. And frightening, and given his track record, it wasn’t good. Asking Ned to break his arm with a vise was – it sounded a lot like a pills situation, which it wasn’t, Peter would most definitely be alone for such a thing. His stomach churned a bit though as he stared at his best friend, as he watched the horror creep in silently. The hesitance to say anything, because maybe he didn’t want Peter to feel crazy, even though he knew he sounded crazy.

 

“You’re joking…right?” Ned’s voice was trembling, and Peter could hear he was on the verge of panicking. Peter stepped forward quickly, shushing him with a finger over his lips but Ned’s jaw had dropped, and Peter put both hands on his friend’s shoulders. Ned practically exclaimed though, echoing through the workshop, “Are you insane!?”

 

Peter hissed, “Ned, _stop_.”

 

“Stop? Stop!? Dude, you just asked me to break your freakin’ arm! With a vise, like some…Some _Orphan_ shit. What the hell? This isn’t – Pete, are you…you’re taking your medicine right, you’re okay – “

 

Peter’s eyes narrowed a moment, “Yes, I’m taking my meds. Jeez…Look, I know it sounds bad. I know it sounds – it sounds _bad_ , okay, I get it. But…You gotta do this for me. It’s important.”

 

Ned started to shake his head and Peter felt concern. Maybe he had told the wrong person. Maybe his track record really was going to ruin all of this. Ned wasn’t going to trust his judgement. The two had limited contact in the past three months, Ned didn’t know where he was in his head. Half the time, Peter barely knew. He swallowed, gripping Ned’s shirt tightly under his fingers as he pleaded with wide, brown eyes. Trying to get Ned to understand the need below them. Trying to make him see that they had to do something.

 

“How is this important?” Ned whispered, “Last time…I mean, just three months ago you were in the hospital – you had – and now…you want me to break your arm? Peter I can’t, I can’t help you hurt yourself, when this stuff happens we’re supposed to talk to an adult – “

 

“The adults don’t care!” Peter’s tone was a hushed scream, quiet yet forceful, “They’re not going to listen to me, but you can! I think I found something…something to-to fix everything, but I need you to help me.”

 

Ned shook his head slowly, “What do you mean ‘fix everything’?”

 

What did he mean? Peter wasn’t sure how to explain it. How to get this theory of his across to his best friend without sounding completely out of his mind. Peter trembled, mouth dry. He continued to grip the front of Ned’s shirt, chewing his lower lip as his mind raced. As he recalled the day he saw Ned for the first time again, as he remembered tears being in his eyes, somewhat relieved he wouldn’t be alone in that five year gap.

 

Peter murmured, “Something to save Mister Stark.”

 

Ned’s face fell further.

 

“Pete…Mister Stark…Mister Stark is _dead_.”

 

Peter felt his eyes burning. There was something cold in Ned not believing him. No one believing him. He wondered, if he hadn’t taken those pills, would they believe him then? Would they remember that he used to be smart? Good at making plans and everything…a good student. A superhero. Spider-Man. If he hadn’t taken the pills…would Ned be wide eyed and excited at the prospect of bringing Iron Man back to life? Or was it just the diagnosis, the sadness, the thing Peter couldn’t get off his shoulder, he couldn’t get rid of it, it stayed. Like a virus.

 

Finally, he found his voice, leaning close to his best friend, trying to get him to listen, “I know how it sounds – it sounds insane. But I swear, I swear this isn’t my…this isn’t my whatever-it-is convincing me to say this. It’s true and it’s real. But I need your help. Please, Ned don’t look at me like I’m still lying in a hospital bed, I’m telling the _truth_.”

 

Ned stared. Just…stared. His face was contemplating, and Peter could see the flicker of trust there, Ned wanting to believe what was coming out of Peter’s mouth. But maybe it had become too easy to view Peter as the sick kid. His best friend who had taken a handful of pills and needed to be helped. Not Spider-Man. No longer a vigilante. But Ned had come with him that night willingly, so there had to be something underneath. Something that he recognized as being the truth within Peter. Peter clung to a hope that rose, a moment of enlightenment, maybe. For his friend to understand what he needed to do, what had to be done.

 

He breathed, grabbing a hold of Peter’s wrist, “This is what we have to do?”

 

“It’s what we have to do,” Peter responded, nodding, “ _Please_.”

 

Peter supposed that was how he ended up with his left arm in the vise, his leather belt removed from his waist and placed between his teeth. The metal touched his skin, it barely felt like anything. For a moment it was cold until it welcomed a sense of fear within him. He was afraid, of what it was going to feel like. He imagined, not very good. Not nice, but it was coming whether he liked it or not. Peter swallowed, took in all of the broken things inside of him and asked, ‘was this necessary’? And it was. If he was going to get into the Sanctum…if he was going to get the book…

 

It was.

 

Necessary.

 

“Peter,” Ned’s hands were shaking, and Peter felt bad, “I dunno if I…”

 

Peter shook his head. No second thoughts. No steps back. Mister Stark wouldn’t – he would have been brave, like he had been with the gauntlet. He would have pushed forward. Peter inhaled, nodding his head as if to say ‘do it, do it, do it’ the leather belt pressed tightly between his teeth. Ned frowned, face contorting as he started to turn the crank. It was agonizing, waiting for the pressure, and at first…it didn’t hurt. It just felt like the metal was getting heavier against his skin, gently prodding, and poking, asking to be allowed to abuse. Then it turned into a pinch.

 

His chest heaved. Peter inhaled and exhaled, and he imagined a gauntlet turning to flames. What that pain must have felt like and how he should have been able to take a stupid vise pushing through his bone, wanting desperately for it to give way. Peter groaned, and grabbed the edge of the table. Ned hesitated in the slightest, and Peter bit down harder on the belt, shaking his head ‘go, go, go’ and Ned continued on. Peter let out a choked off sob when it started to burn up and down his limb and he could not understand his own stupidity.

 

But it had to be done.

 

To save Mister Stark, it had to be done.

 

_Get into the Sanctum. Break the arm, go see Doctor Strange, find the book._

Tears were slipping, as well as the stuttering of his chest.

 

Ned was obviously panicking, the more pressure that was applied and his friend was muttering under his breath, “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit – “

 

_Doctor Purple stared at him closely._

_“Do you ever feel the need to hurt yourself again, Peter?”_

_Peter looked at Doctor Purple, who hated being called that, who just wanted to be Doctor Puddle, but Peter had stolen her name. A coping mechanism shrouded in petulant childishness. A way to hide a fear he had for talking about these things. The things that threatened to consume him, entirely. Peter gulped, and he tilted his head to the side. He imagined what it would be like, in a world where he had not lost his trust._

_“No,” Peter answered truthfully, “No, I don’t.”_

_“Not even as punishment for something you think you deserve?”_

_The self-blame, it had reared an ugly head._

_Peter breathed, “Only if it would save someone else.”_

Peter’s bone gave way.

 

The sickening crack sounded through the workshop. It was nauseating, and Peter almost collapsed from the white agony piercing him to his very core. He let out a scream, biting down hard on the belt in his mouth as he did so. Ned produced a startled shout of his own, immediately having the vise go lax with one twirl of the crank. It hurt, Peter remembered tree branches bending under storms. It sounded so similar. He flinched when Ned turned around, and there was the sound of vomit hitting the floor.

 

“Holy shit!” Ned’s voice shrieked and coughed.

 

Peter fell back onto his bottom, cradling his arm close to his chest. Tears welled into his eyes and he let out a sob of agony, trying to catch his breath from the shock to his body. It radiated, climbed, found a home within his body that had been abused for months now. Peter looked at Ned through his tear-filled eyes, he saw guilt there and he hoped Ned understood this was something Peter had asked for. That it wasn’t his responsibility.

 

It was a start.

 

Peter’s chest shuttered, and he cried a bit more, tears slipping through like a child that had fallen on a playground.

 

“God, Peter,” Ned turned from where he had vomited, kneeling beside him, hands hovering as if he was afraid to touch, “God, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have let you – I should have never done that. Holy – my God, I’m so sorry – “

 

Peter only shook his head. _Only shook it rapidly_.

 

Ned didn’t understand.

 

This was how they were going to save Mister Stark.


	4. Over the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, you said you fell,” Strange started and Peter felt his pulse spike again, but Strange never looked away from where he was rubbing the liquid, “How, might I ask, did you do that?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for spelling/grammar mistakes! I didn't get to proofread quite yet, but I'm going to come back and do that. I just wanted to get this out before I gotta study more haha!

_The week had passed, Peter had tried._

_He had really tried to handle it._

_The funeral was a burden that stuck with him, at that lake house in the quiet. When he had said goodbye to both Miss Potts (Stark? But she was a widow, he supposed Aunt May knew better than anyone what Miss Potts was going through…becoming a mother alone, but Parker had stuck, he supposed Stark would too) and Morgan. He recalled her tiny hand gripping the shoulder of his shirt, where he had kneeled, had hugged her close because she had asked him…Had gestured for him to come to her level._

_“Will you come back?” Morgan had asked, “I have a tent and a tea party set. We could play.”_

_Peter said he would be back, but then standing in his aunt’s bathroom, the door closed and locked, in front of the mirror…Medicine cabinet closed and orange bottle between his fingers…He wondered if that had been a lie. Maybe he would never be back. He never saw Aunt May take the sleeping meds, and from the looks of it, not many had been used. The year they had been prescribed made it clear it was after Uncle Ben’s death. Peter remembered coming home from school, finding her on the couch, and her hand had reached for him and he had laid down on the floor beside it. Had gripped her hand tightly within his own._

_He wondered who was going to hold her hand if he was gone. But the truth was, in that moment he could hardly find the energy to feel guilty. He just felt…burdened and like a hypocrite. Not like a hero. Heroes didn’t do this. Heroes didn’t live a week, after the biggest battle of their lives and then just choose to end it all. But Morgan, Pepper…They could survive, and he could not, and that was what was nauseating about it._

_It wasn’t his right to grieve so transparently._

_His hand squeezed, and he raised the bottle to his lips. Just pour them back, swallow all at once. Dry. He could do it. Peter could no longer lay cowardice while others died, but he could do no more. If an afterlife existed, he wondered if Mister Stark would still give him that disappointed look, like the ferry, or if he’d be welcomed into an embrace like after returning from the Snap. His mind whirled with visions of what could have been. If Ned would be okay with just MJ and the others. If he could do this – Peter didn’t know if he was brave – he wasn’t, it was cowardice but…_

_‘Be brave. Be brave, braver than you’ve ever been. Peter, the pills are right there.’_

_He supposed he could no longer afford the vulnerability._

_Peter tipped the pills back._

Peter blinked and swallowed hard.

 

He stared up at the doors of the Sanctum. His arm was wrapped in a sweat shirt Ned had given him to steady the pain during his walk. Unfortunately…like the awful and cruel – was he? Doctor Strange had said he wasn’t, but Ned had cried when Peter’s eyes were welling with pained tears – friend he was. He was so terrible to do that, his arm was already turning black and blue. His mind whirled with a plan that he didn’t know how to implement.

 

How did he implement this sort of lie?

 

Peter adjusted his backpack, with the bounce of his shoulders, slightly nauseated still from his arm being crushed, and what had he done? He had just sent Ned home. Like a complete and utter…asshole. Had promised to update him on the situation, but there was no plan in that. Truth was, Peter was losing sight of a plan that had been established in the arms of Pepper Potts during a moment of complete and utter despair. When grief had hit him full force once more, for the first time in a few months. When he had really realized that – yeah – Mister Stark was dead.

 

Completely.

 

Peter’s mouth was dry. It shouldn’t have been, he should have been brave, braver than the pills, and he reached out his arm, knocked on the door. It was rapid succession and he wondered if sorcerers even used their front doors. Masters of the mystic arts could always just…poof themselves inside, he supposed. Or he was just making shit up as he went along. Peter bit the inside of his mouth, he smothered this illusion that should not have existed. An illusion that told him – or screamed, more so screamed – that things were in their own moments. That he lived outside of them.

 

Peter waited a few seconds, then knocked again.

 

Holy shit…

 

What if he wasn’t home?

 

The thought struck him, and Peter imagined having to carry himself back and explain to the Compound where he went, and why his arm was broken, and why he stole Bucky’s motorbike like a complete and irresponsible dumbass in the middle of the night. Suffering through that drive in the pain he was in. Maybe he should have checked the guy’s schedule. Asked around, gotten some idea of what he was doing. Because Peter never planned ahead, that was how he had ended up in the hospital, he hadn’t thought of what would happen if it hadn’t worked.

 

Peter jumped when the door swung open.

 

Instead of Doctor Strange’s glowering face, there was the perplexed expression of Wong. Sometimes Peter forgot he was also in the Sanctum most days. Peter nearly stumbled back and Wong tilted his head to the side, as if studying him.

 

“Well…you’re not the pizza I ordered.”

 

Peter cleared his throat awkwardly. Slowly, back and forth he shook his head. Wong recognized him though and didn’t ask questions as he stepped aside to allow Peter room to enter the building. Peter almost scurried inside, as if the invitation would be revoked at any moment. The open foyer welcomed him, the stairs before him climbing up and up to where he knew the books would be down the hallway, inside Strange’s study/library. Where they had conversated just several hours before. The door behind him closed and he flinched from the thoughts – grab the book, put it in your backpack, find somewhere to go – Peter held his arm near him, protected under the sweat shirt and Wong hummed behind him.

 

“He’s in his study. You remember where it is?”

 

Peter gave a mute nod, much like the shake of his head before he slowly climbed the stairs. He was nauseas, afraid Strange would see right through his lies, even though he prayed that wouldn’t be the case. Peter was a bad liar, always had been and he tried to hold his breath, to bury it down, to do something other than suffer. But he had been torturing himself for three months now, he didn’t know how else to be. He made it to the landing, and started making his way down the hallway, taking in calming breaths, reciting the story in his mind. How he had gotten there, what he was doing, why he was hurt and why Strange shouldn’t worry.

 

 _Please,_ Peter thought, _Let him be blind._

 

Peter rounded the corner, into the open door. The books, the shelves, they all held the familiar hope. The hope that came and burrowed within him like a plague. Maybe if he was like Pepper, had accepted Tony Stark’s death as truth and fact and existence, Peter would have an easier time letting go. But it was hard. Difficult, in a better word. Peter wrung his hands, bit down on his lower lip like it was the only thing he could do.

 

Doctor Strange was at his desk. Several books were laid out, and Peter’s foot hit a particularly loud creak in the wood floor. Strange’s head snapped upward, face perplexed, then slightly surprised to see Peter standing before him. Maybe it was the disheveled hair, or the sweatshirt, cradling his arm. Peter chewed his lower lip, and swallowed, swallowed, swallowed, and tried not to vomit. Strange placed both hands flat on the table where he had them pressed to his temples in deep thought. Though he did not show outward concern – because he never did, he was like this vague guardian that was trying so hard to keep Peter alive, and he didn’t know why – but the concern was flickering under his eyes, in the form of worry and maybe a bit of bordering frustration, because Peter couldn’t stay out of trouble to save his life.

 

_“When it comes to saving you, or the kid, or the Time Stone, I will not hesitate to let either of you die.”_

Where was that attitude? Where had it gone?

 

Strange questioned, bluntly, calmly, but his eyes deceived him, “What are you doing here in the middle of the night? Children should be in bed by this hour.”

 

Children. Children.

 

_I’m sixteen._

 

Peter slowly unwrapped his arm. The limb he exposed wasn’t at an odd angle, but his forearm was most definitely swollen, and bruised, several markings appearing. Something apparent, going on under the skin that they could not outwardly notice. A break, a fracture, either way it was broken, and Peter just wasn’t willing to make the limb angled, he didn’t know if he could stomach it. It must have been a good enough sight though, because Strange stood immediately from his chair. His brows furrowed, not necessarily worry, but something else as he walked around the table and crossed the room towards the boy. Peter resisted the urge to step away as his wrist was grabbed. None too gently. Peter cringed a bit and looked at Strange with a shocked expression, though it clearly wasn’t meant to hurt him.

 

Strange’s index finger slid over the bruising, much softer this time and he asked in a voice that demanded attention – not anger still – but demanding and Peter readied himself to explain the dialogue he had been practicing over and over in his head.

 

“What did you do?”

 

“I-I,” Peter still stuttered over the words, “Fell. Well – yeah, I fell. I was…I was climbing, you know, and I know I’m not ‘sposed to be doing any of that. But yeah, and I tried to catch myself but I couldn’t, I don’t have a suit anymore…Or webshooters, so…”

 

Peter’s voice was trembling, almost as if he was going to cry, but they weren't tears, it was anxiety. Lying through his teeth. There was this long moment of consideration and Peter couldn’t see what Strange was thinking, but he hoped it was belief behind his eyes. He hoped it was something that could be latched onto. Something to move forward with. Because this wasn’t even the hard part. The hard part was the book. Everything else. Peter breathed deeply, holding his breath and waiting. Just waiting for a response.

 

Finally…it came…A sigh, deep and familiar – almost like Mister Stark’s.

 

Sometimes they were alike. Their confidence and intelligence and their overall attitude towards Peter. It was kind of startling. But Doctor Strange was not Tony, and Doctor Strange was only around because of guilt. At least, that was what Peter had deciphered. He trembled as Strange gave him almost an exhausted stare, but the words were relieving because they meant belief, belief that Peter hadn’t been sure was coming…

 

“Do they know you left?”

 

Peter shook his head, and Strange rolled his eyes, “You aren’t supposed to be leaving the Compound. Especially not coming into the city without permission. Or climbing things, patrolling – “

 

“I wasn’t patrolling,” Peter corrected, “I just…missed the city.”

 

That was honest and true, but it wasn’t what had happened to him. Peter was led towards the desk where Strange gestured for him to sit in the chair. Peter did so, and Strange moved away, grabbing another seat and dragging it towards where Peter was seated. He ordered, voice softening just a bit as if Peter’s words had settled inside of him, “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

 

Peter nodded his head hurriedly, resisting the urge to shoot his eyes towards the book shelf. Strange turned and strode out of the room and Peter waited just a moment, eyes studying the door to wait for him to remerge. When his footsteps were far enough away, Peter started slipping his backpack off, cringing slightly when pain shot through his arm at the movement. He then jumped from the desk chair, nearly tripping as he tried to carry himself across the room as quickly as possible, feet almost stumbling over one another and mind whirling with panic.

 

Peter went hunting for that familiar bookshelf from only hours before. The one that made his skin crawl with bugs and fear and a knowing, knowing, knowing what he was doing was wrong but he was doing it anyway because – well this was what had to happen. He reminded himself that, with the pain in his arm and under his skin where the terror lived as he finally laid his eyes on the book, the purple one with green and gold writing and Peter's tongue was dry, picking it off the shelf and into his shaky hand.

 

_demonic literature, bargaining._

It had no actual title, Peter noticed, just the short descriptor. It felt heavy, and Peter’s shoes were untied, but he managed not to fall once it was settled comfortably into his hand. He moved back towards the desk and threw himself into the chair as he started to fight with his backpack to open with one hand and put the book inside of it. His mind whirled and twisted, practically doing somersaults in the pit of his stomach with a sickness. He finally zipped the bag up, book safely tucked inside and Peter threw himself back into the padded chair, hair falling into his face slightly just as Strange rounded the corner.

 

Peter’s heart stuttered and he held his breath to hide the fact he had just jumped across the room and was cradling his broken arm. Strange didn’t seem concerned, some kind of bowl in his hand as he set it on the desk table and moved around the chair, taking a seat. Peter watched the movements carefully, and a hand slipped under the desk chair he was sitting in, pulling him towards where Strange was seated. Their knees touched and Strange ordered, “Sit up.”

 

He did so, still trying to hide the racing, the breathing, the expansion and closing of his chest. He held his arm out and Strange took it, rolling his sleeve all of the way up to expose the rest of the arm. Peter eyed the liquid in the bowl and questioned, “What’s that?”

 

“A remedy of Wong’s,” Strange replied, fingers gliding over the limb and his eyes shutting. As if his magic allowed him to see the break. He hummed, “He’s much better at this sort of thing than me, but he’s enjoying a pizza at the moment. Ironic considering I’m the one with the MD, but…mystic healing it much different.”

 

Suddenly his finger stopped and pressed downward. Peter gasped and cringed and almost immediately Strange let up, nodding, “There it is.”

 

Peter reached up and gripped Strange’s sleeve, looking at him with a betrayed expression. Strange shrugged, “If I warn you, you’ll tense.”

 

Strange dipped his thumb into the thick liquid. It was white and almost resembled some sort of slime, the stuff kids made in their free time. He spread it over the deepest of the bruising, and most of it was applied where he had put pressure before. Peter watched, before lifting his eyes to look into Doctor Strange’s face. Strange wasn’t looking at him though, just his arm as he caked the lower portion of his limb. The slime felt like nothing, though it was cool.

 

Strange’s hands were scarred.

 

“So, you said you fell,” Strange started and Peter felt his pulse spike again, but Strange never looked away from where he was rubbing the liquid, “How, might I ask, did you do that?”

 

Peter trembled a bit, instinctively pulling on the hold, but Strange didn’t release and actually looked up at him curiously. He only tugged a bit harsher when there was pain from the thumb pressing down again over the same wound and this time yellow appeared under the touch, the same familiar yellow. Peter cringed heavily, and let out a small sound of discomfort, scooting the chair away a bit, but the hand did not release, and the thumb didn’t lessen pressure.

 

“Shhh,” Strange soothed, “I’m mending the fracture.”

 

Peter sucked in air, the chair rolling forward once more against his will as Strange simply hooked his foot under it. Strange went on, “So, my question – how did you fall?”

 

The boy gritted his teeth with a bit of frustration.

 

“Shouldn’t you know? You – knew about the pills,” Peter groaned through the pain.

 

_Bright lights were above Peter’s head._

_The bathroom lights._

_A hand on his face, another on his shoulder shaking him and when Peter focused, there he was. Doctor Strange, eyes holding concern, worry, and why was he in their apartment? He had never even visited before, he barely knew Aunt May aside from the funeral. Peter was on the floor, against the bathtub on his side. He noticed the sight of vomit, in front of him. Peter could hardly breathe, like an elephant sat on his chest._

_“Peter, open your eyes.”_

_Peter shook his head, “L – le – leave me alone.”_

That was most of what Peter remembered before waking in the hospital with a new life waiting for him. One of medicine, psychiatrists, CPS interviews. Peter blinked up at Doctor Strange, the pain still blooming in his limb and he wished it would fall off. Strange’s eyes found his, finally, and bore into him like nails. Peter was bent over a bit in the chair, trying to breathe through what was being inflicted upon him. Deep, inwardly, inhaled and exhaled. Peter tried and tried again over and over. His body was trembling.

 

“Do you regret me having come?”

 

Strange’s question was sharp, just as his eyes that were cutting into Peter. Peter could hardly focus on anything, his mind whirling with pain. Peter bit his lip, and he answered, as honest as the voice in the back of his mind, “I regret getting caught.”

 

The bones fused at that moment, he supposed, the fracture slipping back together. Peter felt the sharp intake of it, and he let out a shout, curling inward almost instantly, forehead nearly slamming against Strange’s knee. One grip remained on his forearm, preventing him from cradling it to his chest, and the other hand squeezed the back of his neck. Peter gasped like a fish out of water, continuing past it, “You – you said if you had to choose, you would let us die – “

 

“I wasn’t protecting a stone,” Strange corrected, and when Peter looked up Strange had begun to clean the white goop from his arm. As it was removed, Peter saw that the bruising had disappeared completely, “I was protecting you from yourself. I knew you were off, and it didn’t take magic to see that. So, I started to watch. Ever since the conversation after the funeral.”

 

_Peter sat, silently. The front porch was a lonely place, when everyone was inside. Having a meal prepared for them. Peter couldn’t eat, couldn’t find the energy to force it down his throat, despite that his stomach was terribly empty. He couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so hungry. Maybe after Uncle Ben. Maybe after he had nearly starved with that fresh metabolism. The lake hummed to him, where the reactor had gone just moments before. Peter wondered if they knew it was just going to sink to the bottom._

_The door behind him opened. There were footsteps across the wood. He had removed his suit jacket, and sat with his knees pulled close to his chest. When Peter looked up, he had half expected to see Happy or Aunt May. But instead it was Doctor Strange there, holding a plate in his hand. He blinked down at Peter, and Peter just watched him sit down in the seat in front of him, blocking the view of the water that had swallowed Tony’s heart._

_Strange set the plate in front of Peter on the small table between them. There was fruit and cheese, and some crackers on it. Peter eyed it, almost longingly, but the thought of it made him sick. Strange’s voice came out blunt._

_“You look gaunt.”_

_Peter blinked, “W-what?”_

_“You look gaunt,” Strange repeated, “You know…ill. Like you’ve not been eating. Your aunt tells me you haven’t – I asked.”_

_“I’ve been eating,” Peter lied, even though the same thought had just reminded him of that, “I eat, I just ate. She just – she’s been busy. You know, helping Miss Potts and stuff.”_

_Being a widow was…hard business. Only other widows could understand, Peter guessed._

_Strange pushed the plate a bit closer to him, eyes narrowed. Peter didn’t move from his place as Strange ordered, “Prove it.”_

_A deep stab flitted in. Like a knife twisting in the pit of his stomach. Peter looked at Strange, as if asking him why he was doing this to him. Why he was torturing him like that. Asking these questions that hurt. Peter’s lower lip trembled and he looked down at the plate, wanting to reach for it, wanting to prove, but he could hardly breathe because of the sudden panic enveloping him. Peter sucked in air, eyes beginning to water profusely as if it had seemingly triggered a desire to go into the lake and to go under with the heart and –_

_Peter pressed his hands to his eyes, “What the fuck – “_

_He was crying – over some fucking food. He heard the door open again and there was movement, then a pause as Peter looked up with wide eyes. Happy was standing there and Peter felt embarrassment slide into his face with warmth and Happy stared, confused as Peter hiccuped where he sat. Happy questioned, taking a step forward, “Hey…kid, are you okay?”_

_Peter pushed himself to his feet, and Strange let him walk right past him down the steps of the front porch._

 

Peter bit his lower lip and looked down.

 

Slowly, he stood, ignoring the way his body creaked. Peter picked up the backpack that was heavier now with the book inside before he slung it over his shoulder. He looked down at Doctor Strange, taking in his face, studying him, wondering and wondering what he maybe had done wrong. Where he belonged in all of this, what he deserved. He had gone to that funeral because it was the right thing to do, not because he had wanted to say goodbye.

 

He hadn’t been ready yet.

 

“Thank you,” Peter said, and maybe not just because of the wound…healing it. The book, but because someone had found him in that bathroom, “Just…thank you. And I’m sorry.”

 

…

 

He was sorry for what he was going to do.

 

But he had to.

 

It was that simplistic of a decision.

 

First, it was a gas station. Lighter fluid, a lighter, and a pocket knife. Then it was finding the motorbike, because he had forgotten where he had parked it. Then…it was going to Central Park. Picking a place where emptiness in the middle of the night would be offered amongst the grass and the trees, where a small fire could be invisible. Where police weren’t patrolling and the homeless weren’t wandering. Where couples weren’t making out and where Peter could…fuck – well, essentially summon a demon.

 

It was so messed up.

 

Peter didn’t really know how the ritual worked exactly. It was on page fifty-one. Apparently…well, Lilith was the mother of demons. She could grant wishes. Peter liked…science – not magic, magic was cool, but it had always seemed like pretend, as well as demons. But he had learned from Strange, the stones, whatever – none of it was really bullshit. The paper was frail under his fingers where he crouched behind some planted trees, where his fingers slid under each and every page, where he inhaled and exhaled with a terror that was palpable.

 

What did demons look like?

 

What if she wouldn’t grant his wish?

 

What if he didn’t have something she wanted?

 

Peter tried to coerce his emotions to explain anything to him. To tell him why he was doing this, why he couldn’t let go, why he was risking so much, using lighter fluid to mark a pentagram into the grass and expecting this not to end poorly. He wondered, as he pulled the lighter out, as he tried to memorize the Latin words he could not comprehend. As he grabbed the pocket knife and readied to cut it into his palm.

 

_Virgin blood._

Good thing Peter didn’t run around doing rituals often. Saved him time from having to cut someone else. He hesitated, lighting the fire, but when he did it smelled odd, and he felt afraid, but he fought it down into nothing more than anxiety. Like the vise, and breaking his arm, and then ultimately having it healed by Doctor Strange with magic – was this so much worse? It was magic to save Mister Stark. To bring him back from depths unknown, it was in a book Doctor Strange owned, why would he own a book if it was dangerous?

 

That was all just…Peter trying to make sense of his bad decisions.

 

He pressed the dull pocket knife to his skin and it took a lot of prodding to break into it. Peter cringed heavily, but felt it open up and the warmth filled the palm of his hand as the fire caressed the earth beneath him and he remembered the smell of Mister Stark’s charred flesh and the way it had come into a whole new world – a world without Iron Man. And Peter imagined if he could bring Mister Stark back…if he could save him, revive him, wouldn’t that be so much better for everyone else?

 

Even if it endangered himself.

 

The blood slipped into the fire. Peter looked at the Latin words one last time, trying to breathe.

 

Reciting had never been taught, besides being able to recite Shakespeare in school or the Constitution. Memorizing. Peter thought momentarily the Latin was something a priest would say, but then he realized as it left his lips it wasn’t equivalent, probably. Peter’s stomach twisted up, he felt nauseous, recalling Strange’s thumb on his broken arm, the concern there, the worry. The love on his aunt’s face, Pepper’s softness, and Happy’s breaking walls. Peter wondered when he would be free of those memories, if ever, and if they would be disappointed in what he was doing. What he was risking. A presence he was inviting.

 

He continued on, the words flowed easier.

 

_Et voco hic._

Peter recalled the bright flash of the Snap. Of Tony clicking his fingers together, of the army turning to ash, and of air leaving him when he realized what had happened. Peter remembered that – so vividly – it had blinded him a moment and when the words left his mouth in something he couldn’t completely comprehend, he was left wondering, thinking he was back there as the flames sparked from the symbol on the ground, as it flashed across his vision, as the world opened up. As he was smothered down within it, and thrown backward onto his bottom, hand burning as the cut opened wider and bled into the grass. If no one had seen him before, they would surely see him then.

 

Peter inhaled. Tried to breathe.

 

_“Do you dream about the flash?”_

_Peter whispered it to Colonel Rhodes. Middle of the night, sitting beside where Tony had been welcomed into the folded and broken sky of nothing._

_Colonel Rhodes looked at him, and breathed, “I dream about it all, Peter.”_

Except what was left, had been a corpse. But here…where the brightness had fallen into him like nothing, through his skin, and nothing was burned…Was a figure. Standing on the other side of the fire that had dulled into a soft glow. Peter’s mouth hung open, fingers tightening in the grass under his palms. Peter blinked over and over again, trying to process. Peter slowly pushed himself back up, inhaling, inhaling, trying to fight down what felt so wrong – but he had to be brave. He hadn’t been brave that day, when he had cried over Tony’s corpse and –

 

“Hello.”

 

The voice came out soft, silky. Bumps ran up Peter’s arms as he trembled there. The figure stepped around the fire, casually, as if nothing had happened and when she was a bit easier to focus on, Peter processed – yes – the figure was in fact a woman. Oddly, she resembled Strange…A long cloak, but it remained closed around her. Her face was pale, glowing almost, and she regarded Peter knowingly. Peter’s brain audibly clicked and he could barely get the words out of his mouth.

 

“Li…Lilith?”

 

Her lips upturned slightly, and she tilted her head, “You may call me Mother.”

 

But Peter had no desire to do such a thing. His chest quaked a bit, and he nearly stepped back when she drew closer. She took his wrist, lifting it, and slowly she slid her thumb over Peter’s bloody hand. He felt the wound draw to a close as if the touch itself had healed him. She continued to smile oddly at him, and Peter felt his lips trembling with a strange fear.

 

His eyes were wide, and her hand raised pressing to the side of his cheek, “Do not fear me child, your lovely eyes look like that of a stranded fawn. I am not going to harm you…after all, you are the one that called upon me.”

 

Peter was honest, dazed, and possibly he sounded stupid, “I didn’t think it’d – I didn’t think it’d really work.”

 

“Such little faith in Strange’s magic,” She paused at Peter’s expression, “Oh yes, I know of him, though not personally. There are always rumors floating around about a powerful sorcerer. We watch, we learn, and we know you are somewhat important to him and the other powerful beings of this realm. You’ve created quite the place in their souls, Fawn. Especially in the soul of their fallen king.”

 

Peter flinched, almost pulled from her hand, “He wasn’t a king.”

 

“Was he not?” She questioned, looking amused, “These monuments, memorials, the funeral, and the tears of the world – he seemed to be a king to me.”

 

He felt an overwhelming sense of grief strike him again. The tears of the world. Peter forgot – rather often – that he was not the only one suffering. That the pain below his ribs wasn’t solitary. Peter tried to set his jaw, to stop from becoming emotional in front of an actual demon. But he was frightened, and he knew that much was obvious. She shrugged though, changing the subject easily, smoothly…

 

“Why have you called me here?”

 

Something told Peter she already knew. But it made him feel better pretending she didn’t.

 

“I-I…” Peter tried, “I need to…make a wish.”

 

He was startled when she laughed. It sounded like a genuine, belly laugh, but that silkiness remained behind it. Peter watched her, watched her regain a composure that wasn’t really lost and if anything he felt more terror. His hands trembled, he tried to inhale. Peter – this was him – this was what he needed and she was laughing and he was afraid maybe he had wasted his time –

 

“I am not a genie, Fawn.”

 

Peter’s chest constricted, “But…but the book – “

 

“I grant wishes,” She began, interrupting softly, teeth out in a grin that seemed more frightening than kind, “For a price. They aren’t free, and you only get one. One chance…to get it right. But…with a cost, as I said. A cost that is not cheap.”

 

Peter maybe should have read the fine print.

 

“What does it cost?”

 

“Everything,” She whispered, leaning close to his ear and he almost retreated at the breath, causing him to squirm in terror as he listened, “I get to place my mark on your soul, and you get your wish. I get to collect – not by my own hand but by yours. But trust me, when the time comes, you will come willingly.”

 

It was vague. Peter blinked over her shoulder and he shook his head, “I…I don’t understand.”

 

“You will,” Lilith assured, “But…you have to decide. Do you want your wish? Are you willing to pay the cost?”

 

His mind whirled. He considered this deep precipice he was standing at as she slowly pulled away to look him in the eyes once more. Her hands were warm as they slid up his neck and cupped his face, staring down at him with eyes he could not read. As if she was hungry. Peter’s own eyes watered profusely, and he couldn’t be still, as if he was freezing to death on the summer night. Peter wished he knew – he wished he knew what this was. He wished he had thought more, but the prospect of it – the idea and the hope –

 

“Decide.”

 

Peter’s chest hitched.

 

_“One day, you’ll wake up and without really realizing it…you’ll be better.”_

_Peter looked at his Aunt May._

_“I’ll never be better. No one is better than **him**.”_

_It hadn’t been what she meant. But he wanted her to understand._

So…Peter decided, sharply, abruptly, like a car crash.

 

“Okay,” Peter whispered, “Okay, you can have it. You can – you can put your mark. But, you have to – to bring him back…Bring him _back_.”

 

He barely got a moment to consider what was happening when a hand pressed bluntly over his chest. Peter felt a burning sensation, right over his heart and through his clothes and Peter let out a startled gasp, the fire piercing his skin and tearing him open. When she pulled her hand away, there was an odd insignia in his skin, burned through his clothes and leaving the flesh exposed. Peter groaned, pressing a hand to his chest as he took in the circle, with a letter in the center he could not process.

 

Ł

 

The cold faded, sparks left behind under his skin dancing. Peter’s eyes flew upward when Lilith waved her hand to the side, and behind him the ground swallowed. Grass and dirt were eaten alive, Peter felt a breeze erupting from the darkness in the ground behind him. Lilith was smiling, her teeth bright, her face lovely, yet uninviting at the same time. Peter stumbled, a hand grabbing his arm and it pushed him towards what had opened and he wondered – maybe she had lied –

 

“What’re you doing?!” Peter questioned.

 

“Not even I can raise the dead,” Lilith responded, calmly, as if she hadn’t just burned his skin and was about to throw him down a hole, “But, I can give you something just the same. A difference…A new world.”

 

Peter blinked, grabbing her wrist as she continued…

 

“Didn't you wish to wield the gauntlet...to take the final blow...in his place?”

 

A shove.

 

Peter was falling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've been very interest in the Marvel character Lilith for a while now, so I'm happy to kinda get to use her a bit! Obviously I twisted her a bit to fit the role I needed but I enjoyed this chapter!


	5. Under the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tony is gonna kill me for takin’ my eyes off you.”
> 
> “Mister Stark is dead.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I swear Imma work on my other WIPs after this, I'm just a turd...And this makes me feel better. ALSO! last final is in two days so yay! Almost there. This was just another little break.

 

 ** Scenario  ** **14,000,60 _6_**

 

_One…two…three…four…_

_The clock – Peter decided he was in this alternate reality where it counted out loud. The hospital room had been smothered by night time, and he supposed he was supposed to be asleep, but he had all the time in the world to sleep now since he didn’t have to go to school. Well, he hadn’t for a week. He wondered when they would let him go home, when things would go back to normal. They had to go back to normal. The Mistake – well, he was only a hiccup._

_Twenty-five…twenty-six…_

_9:02 P.M._

_It was too early to go to bed. Back…Before the Snap, the Battle, Mister Stark – scratch that – being torn apart by radiation and – what? Peter blinked, the thought was too big. He tried to peer past it. It was filtered through, rifled, Peter leaned his head forward and ran fingers through his hair. The thing on his wrist, scratched his ear and he flinched away from the touch of his own hand. Then there was Mister Stark’s, the homing device, lights going out._

_Thirty…thirty-one…_

_Someone sat on the edge of his bed in the darkness. Peter knew who it was, he came often now. He talked a lot with Aunt May, it was weird. So fucking weird. Peter had never asked for anyone else to pretend to care or to pretend to love him. He squirmed and briefly, just…it was only a brief thought about shoving him off the edge of the hospital bed and telling him to turn back the clock, to change things, to maybe actually tell the truth. To let them know that they’re – well they’re going to die – **he’s going to die**._

_‘I am a train wreck.’_

_“Hold out your hands.”_

_Peter could hardly see his face, it was…there was no light._

_Doctor Strange, and his voice – he spoke oddly. A mix between soft and clinical. Peter knew this to be guilt. Doctor Strange was arrogant, he was a – well – a doctor. Had been a good one before his hands had…anyway…Peter didn’t like to assign a back story, it made Strange seem real. Peter had hated him, still hated him, for many reasons. That was why his gentleness was unwelcomed. Just another person who felt sorry for him, who felt responsible for Peter’s misery, or felt they owed Mister Stark something. And in turn had to protect Peter from himself._

_The Hiccup._

_“Come on, hold out your hands.”_

_Peter did so slowly, he raised them, out in front of him. Meer inches away. Cupped together. Strange, and his eyes, that was all Peter could process. Because the monitors behind his head glowed just enough to make him barely visible. He watched Strange lift his right hand, and he held it out. There was a spark, a flicker, and then a flame. A glow, and Peter’s eyes widened slightly at the sight. Like a candle emerging from Strange’s palm and yet he was not burning. Peter – sickly – imagined the hospital coming to the ground as a result of that flame._

_His hand brushed Peter’s, and the flame crawled off. Peter nearly yanked away out of pure instinct. Don’t touch fire. It felt warm, but soon enough, like a living creature, it crawled over his skin. It felt like nothing more than someone breathing hot breath onto him. Peter looked up at Strange, and suddenly that sullenness was chased away in favor of awe, because – jeez – he was holding fire in his hands and it wasn’t burning him._

_“Woah…”_

_Amazement. And for a brief moment, Peter felt himself again._

_Fifty-nine, sixty._

For the second time in his life, Peter woke up in a hospital bed.

 

Difference: his stomach was not being pumped.

 

Difference: He didn’t recall emptying something chalky into his body.

 

Difference: Lilith had thrown him down a hole.

 

There was a moment of trying to piece that memory. Then, stepping back, realizing he had in fact used a knife to cut his hand open and summon something from one of Strange’s books. Peter though, only felt hot. Very hot, like the coolness and breath of a flame had never existed, he had only ever – ever been this. Staring at a ceiling. Every muscle within his body felt like it had been running for weeks. Had never stopped, running from something he didn’t know and couldn’t pretend to know. Didn’t care to know. Just _run_.

 

His head turned slightly, there was something over his face, but not down his throat – good sign. A plastic…mask. Oxygen, and his chest expanded as he looked where pressure was climbing into his skin. His left arm was unharmed, an IV emerging. Taped down, skin pale and slightly bruised. Peter’s brows furrowed briefly, turning toward his right arm where most of the weight was emerging, oddly…And – Peter didn’t know what he was expecting.

 

His arm was in some sort of stabilizer, held in place by a foam splint. Squeezed into stillness. Running up and down his skin…Well, Peter didn’t know the exact word for it, but – the markings – they ran from his fingertips up underneath the white patterned sleeve of whatever he was wearing. Bumps, and branches, climbing and climbing up his right limb and Peter’s mind flickered with the name – what it was called – something from science class…

 

Lichtenberg Figures.

 

Peter swallowed, mind whirling. He reached up, grabbing the mask over his face before tugging it over his head and simultaneously sitting up in the bed. He flinched heavily when the muscles inside the splint contracted, as if they hadn’t moved for some time. He reached over, undoing the clasps before freeing his arm completely, a dull ache hovering within him. His stomach churned and vision twisted when he pushed himself to the side of the bed, trying to maneuver his arm to remove the IV.

 

Catheter.

 

Fucking brilliant.

 

That, in itself, was traumatizing enough. Hospital gown, removing all the wires and tubes, and Peter was then stumbling to his feet. The tile floor was cold, and Peter cradled his – injured? – arm close to his chest. His fingers dug into the skin, tender where the lightning shaped scars ran into his body. Under his fingers and rising. He stumbled towards the door, sliding on the wall before he peered out into the hallway, mint colored paint lining the sheetrock. It felt like waking up all those months ago, hoping things could just go back to normal. Being stupid enough to believe they would after he did what he did, and why was he there?

 

After being thrown in a hole by Lilith – the agreement – _why was he there?_

 

Peter stepped into the hall, keeping his shoulder on the wall as he walked towards the opposite end. His mind tried to process, tried to make sense, tried to figure out what was happening and it was hard to breathe past the pressure in his chest. As if someone was sitting on it. He could hear the buzzing of the lightbulbs over his head, like a constant scratching. Peter inhaled, trying to calm his racing heart.

 

His senses screamed, and Peter heard the voice call for him down the hallway –

 

“Hey!”

 

Peter whirled, vision blurring at the edges, but not so much that he couldn’t see the woman standing there in bright blue scrubs. Peter stumbled backward, just as she started moving towards him and he faced back towards the direction he was going. He focused on putting on foot in front of the other – running – run – and it took so long to get those muscles to move, and butter was in his limbs – Peter went towards the giant windows, where sunlight was pouring in at the end of the hall and he ignored the woman calling behind him, footsteps running after him as he continued to hold his arm protectively to his chest.

 

Peter made it to the staircase, leading down into a lobby cradled with glass windows that overlooked a street and across from it – a parking lot. Peter tried to take two steps at a time, missing the third-to-last one and plummeting down onto the concrete floor below. He cried out, his knee opening up to a rush of blood and smearing on the white florescence before he was on his feet again, going and going to the sliding doors. They barely opened in time to let him through and a woman jumped out of his way just in time for him to emerge.

 

The street.

 

Peter didn’t look, he just ran.

 

Stupid – and the car honked, slamming on its brakes. Peter only saw the red of the vehicle before it bumped into him, throwing him down into the pavement. He let out a gasp of air, as it was shocked from his lungs and he tried to breathe past the spasming in his chest as it attacked him. Peter couched, looking at the bumper mere inches from his face and he only gagged a moment, as if he had been punched in the stomach.

 

There was an indention, but his body didn’t feel broken, it just felt shocked. He started trying to get to his feet again, knee still bleeding, hip throbbing from the bumper and mind trying to catch up with the heaving of his ribs. No oxygen, and it was hot – fucking blistering outside. The sun blinded him and Peter let out a quiet sob, but he didn’t think he was crying. Just in pain. His arm had evolved from an ache to sharp stabbing in the muscles as they twitched and spasmed.

 

“Oh – holy shit – hey, are you okay?”

 

The driver was standing a few feet away, as if frightened to come closer to the kid, bleeding in the hospital gown. Peter groaned, grabbing his chest under his arm as he rolled onto his knees. He tried again to push up, but he could hardly stop his arm – the constant tensing and relaxing of the muscles there. As if it was being electrocuted. Peter grabbing his wrist and squeezed his hand open and shut, gritting his teeth as he groaned.

 

“Kid!”

 

A new voice. Familiar this time.

 

Peter turned his head slowly over his shoulder, back towards the hospital. His mouth was slightly open and sure enough the sources of the familiar voice – Happy Hogan – was running towards him. He was in a suit, as usual, his tie flying behind his head. Not far behind him was another less familiar face. Only because the face had disappeared some time ago, morphing into something new, but – well Peter wasn’t sure what to make of it.

 

Doctor Banner…Just not…Green. Not the Hulk…

 

Normal.

 

Peter barely had time to think before Happy was sliding down in front of him, taking him gently by the shoulders and squeezing, “Oh – shit! Are you okay, God, you’re bleeding, Kid, what’d you run for!? Banner get – get someone out here, right now – “

 

“Happy, breathe,” Doctor Banner ordered, but he didn’t kneel down, because Peter tugged away from Happy’s hold, brows furrowing in confusion. He hadn’t seen Happy since being in the hospital really…Only in passing. Now he was there – they were at the hospital – he was…concerned and Peter couldn’t wrap his mind around what was going on. Why they were there, why Doctor Banner wasn’t giant and green. Why his arm hurt and tears oozed. Peter fell back on his bottom from the force of pulling away from Happy. He held his wrist again, looking down at his arm, and his chest shook, mouth parting just enough to let out a sound of pain.

 

“Ah,” Peter gasped, opening and closing his hand over and over again, “I-It – I can’t – “

 

Happy reached out again, “It’s okay, it’s just – “

 

He was cut off when Peter pulled away again, jaw setting hard and he hit the bumper, the back of his head snapping against it like a frightened animal. Doctor Banner raised a hand towards Happy, shaking his head – as if telling him not to approach. Like Peter was dangerous, and maybe he was. Peter sniffed inward, nose clogged as he coughed in return, in the exhale. His mind tried to catch up, to grab some sense, to find a connection and then – no…it was nothing. None of this made sense.

 

“Kid – Peter,” Happy rarely said his name, but he held out his hand, “It’s _okay_. We just…we need to get you back inside, Christ…Banner…”

 

A pause, then…

 

“Tony is gonna kill me for takin’ my eyes off you.”

 

_Tony…Tony…Tony…_

_What –_

Lilith. Her expression, the hole in the ground and falling. Peter’s eyes went round, shock evident and his chin rising as he tried to bring in air again. Panic. Pure – and Peter shook his head back and forth and – God, it couldn’t have worked, it…It couldn’t be real. Tony was – Tony was –

 

“Mister Stark is _dead_.”

 

Happy looked startled, and he glanced at Banner briefly. Both concerned. Peter ground his teeth together, and he had known, he should have – he had made the wish – but for some reason it wasn’t processing in the back of his mind how that could work. How it could make any sort of sense to him. He grasped for the explanation that was supposed to come easier than it did, but that happened so rarely and he could not. Peter hiccupped, a sob, shaking his head more and more and more –

 

“He’s dead!”

 

Happy flinched at the shrillness in Peter’s voice but then his eyes turned almost clinical – like Doctor Strange’s used to. He spoke roughly, “Okay, no, that’s enough, that’s enough, we need to go inside.”

 

He reached out, and grabbed a hold of Peter’s arms. Peter pushed outward, making contact with Happy’s chest. He flung backward and Peter shot up, only to be met with Doctor Banner – more people, people in the same blue scrubs the woman at the end of the hallway had been dressed in. Peter screamed – bloody murder, flinging his arms until the prick of a needle kissed his skin when one of the people in scrubs exposed his hip and plunged it down.

 

Peter’s eyes rolled back.

 

_“Not even I can raise the dead. But I can give you something just the same. A difference.”_

_“A new world.”_

…

 

Where the lake met the land…Tony Stark waited.

 

There was lint in his pockets. He twirled it between his fingers, the sun glimmered, it kissed the water as it became morning. The frogs were out, obnoxiously, it was one of the things that took time to get used to when they had moved to the lake house all those years ago. A place and an attempt, a new start somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Hiding…Almost. Tony hadn’t realized, after telling Steve to hide, that this was where they would end up. His mind wandered, along the shore, and he had hoped the inside of his head could look like this one day. But it never would. It was like…the hope, after The War, there had been _hope_.

 

And then there wasn’t.

 

_“If I tell you it won’t happen.”_

Fuck Strange. Absolutely and wholeheartedly.

 

It wouldn’t have happened. It wouldn’t have happened because had Tony had known in that chaos what was going to happen – he would have stopped it. He would have stopped it right then and there and it would have never gotten that far. Tony could have found a way, another way, he could have – but Strange kept saying no – no there had been no other way than that one, and it just felt like bullshit. Hadn’t their messing with the future opened the doors to other alternatives? It should have, that was just proper science, it made sense, but no – no – no the insistence remained the same and Tony could have wrapped his hands around Strange’s neck for not telling him – so he could have ended it himself.

 

For not stopping the kid – putting on that gauntlet…

 

Peter snapping his fingers.

 

_Convulsing._

_Peter was convulsing._

_It smelled of charred flesh, Peter was screaming – wailing while the radiation ate away at him and Tony stared, processed, lunged. Ripped the boiling hot gauntlet from the kid’s arm. They had won – they had won – Peter had won for them, in the worst-most-sacrificial way he could have and sometimes Tony absolutely hated that Peter wasn’t selfish. He wished in that moment he was, as Peter writhed in agony. Tony had tried to do what he had done to Bruce, had tried to soothe it with the foam in his suit, but it was –_

_Well, too late._

_Helplessness. No one had been moving, until Thor had come along, had scooped the kid up off the ground, because Tony was screaming – enraged – confused really. Until they had gotten to a hospital…Because the Compound, the labs, it was a shithole, everything was destroyed. There was the ash cloud for miles and miles, but they had gotten him there – had started trying and trying and trying to save the child Tony had only just gotten back._

_He had only just gotten him back._

_Tony’s fingers had found the front of Strange’s clothing, had yanked him close. Had shaken him forcefully and fought the urge to wrap his hands around his throat. Tony could have killed him right there. Could have ended it. Because he should have told him. Should have –_

_“You son of a bitch!” Tony screamed, “Why would you let that happen!?”_

_“It was the only way.”_

_“No! He’s a fucking kid! He’s a kid, not some sacrifice, not something raised to lead to a slaughter, you brought him there knowing what was going to happen! You brought him from Titan **knowing**!”_

Tony moved back from the memory. It reawakened anger, like an old wound. Something sore, a muscle that would ache forever and ever and now Peter was wasting away in a hospital, hooked to machines, monitors. His healing had repaired most of the physical damage, but the inward damage – the brain – the radiation. It had been too much, even for him, and even if all that was left were the Lichtenberg scars…there was so much to fix, yet it couldn’t be.

 

Mourning.

 

The open wound – wider and wider…Morgan would probably wake up in the next hour. Tony would smile at her, and pretend – because…Peter, he had never gotten to meet her. It was different now, this fatherhood, Morgan existing, and now he knew, he knew what Peter was. And it wasn’t fair that he would only realize it moments after Peter was back, and not even ten minutes later Peter was snapping his fingers in an attempt to save the entire world. A teenager, giving everything, something that was an adult’s job. It was an adult’s job to handle that, it was too big, it never should have been left to him.

 

When he had looked into Peter’s eyes, it had felt like holding Morgan for the first time.

 

 Three months of silence had eaten a hole into him. Of going to the hospital, day after day, trying to take turns with May, but she pushed so hard, she never slept. But he didn’t either. Peter didn’t move, didn’t react, no changes. He at least breathed on his own now, the tube removed, with the help of oxygen. The nerve damage continued, in his right arm. If Peter did wake up, it’d probably hurt for the rest of his life. The point was, Tony was trying to find a way to wake him up. But there was no Compound to hunker down in. He had purposefully left a lab out of their lake house blueprints. He hadn’t wanted that temptation, he built in the garage, but that was the extent of it.

 

“Good morning.”

 

Pepper whispered it from behind him and he turned. Whirled really, as if someone had thrown something at the back of his head. She had a small smile on her face, wrapped in her morning robe and a mug between her fingers. She offered it over to him, the coffee smell mixing with that of the morning dampness. Tony took it, and nodded gratefully, trying to smile back, but he had made the mistake of letting the thoughts linger too long. Which set the course for his mood, the remainder of the day would be mourning a child that wasn’t really lost…Just broken.

 

A child that wasn’t and couldn’t be his. Fate just had not allowed it.

 

“Morning,” He replied, because it wasn’t particularly good, he had ruined it himself, “How’d you sleep?”

 

She shrugged, “Fine…Until Morgan crawled into bed and kept her feet in my face for the remaining five hours.”

 

Tony snorted. It wasn’t genuine, it was weaker than anything. His heart kept stuttering. Three months, and Tony had nightmares of Peter burning to death. Turning to ash, dying in his arms over and over again and his wife and daughter did not understand why he woke sometimes…Crying. Or gasping. Pepper knew, but she didn’t understand the extent, where Peter lived below his ribcage. Where it hurt when he breathed, especially when he thought of how he always laid still in the hospital bed, never to speak.

 

For a kid that talked so much it hurt.

 

“You didn’t sleep.”

 

The words came out matter-of-factly. Tony didn’t know what to say, but she continued before he could even think of words, “I was thinking…I don’t know, you just don’t sleep well here anymore. Maybe it’s because we’re so far from the city…so far from the hospital…”

 

“No,” Tony shook his head, “No, I know what you’re thinking, but no. This is Morgan’s home, this is our family home.”

 

Pepper grimaced, “It’s not much of a home without you in it. And your head is always in that hospital. I just think…it’d be better for you, if we moved closer.”

 

She sighed, “Besides, I grew up in the city. I loved it.”

 

“She has space to play here,” Tony insisted, “I’m saying no. I’ll commute.”

 

Her expression was disbelieving. She knew better, she always did, and Tony wasn’t sure if he believed her or himself. Being closer – it was good, it seemed good, it seemed better. All of the doctors he had hired, the research and everything, Bruce was overseeing it all. But Tony wished…God he wished he could be closer, could be there more instead of having to rely on texts, phone calls, emails. All of the heavy weight, pushing downward, and he could not breathe when he thought of Peter, thought of why he was so stupid and brave, of May, or bringing her nephew to a battle that he shouldn’t have been involved in. It was almost as if he was falling, constant, that feeling in his stomach, like it was rising too high.

 

Pepper’s hand slid over his arm.

 

That day in the hospital rung out over the glass water.

 

_“I couldn’t – God, Pepper, I saw him put it on, I couldn’t get to him fast enough.”_

_The corridor was empty, just the two of them, and Tony cried. So freely it was almost shameful._

_Her hand slid over his arm, her eyes full of love and empathy, Tony could have melted within them._

_“He was back, now he’s – how could I let him do that? I should have been watching him, he was my – my responsibility. Mine. And I let him do that.”_

Tony would remember that pain – that burning sensation over his chest and skin for the rest of his life. Not tangible, but enough so that he could feel it. Dream about it. Wonder what could have gone differently, why Strange believed so firmly in their one future theory. Tony swallowed, the lump in his throat was hard to get past.

 

“It’s okay to want to be close to him,” Pepper whispered.

 

Tony looked down at her, “Being close didn’t do anything either of the times he...he…”

 

He trailed off. He stepped back, letting it process, before pressing the coffee mug to his lips and gulping it down. It burned his throat, but it was a good escape, a reason to be silent. So he welcomed it with all of its rawness and its pain. Tony pretended not to hurt so much, in front of his wife and daughter that it had become a weird act. But Pepper saw through it, and he hoped Morgan didn’t.

 

“Self-sacrificial bullshit,” Tony whispered.

 

Pepper sighed, “He was doing what any of us would do. What the people he admires would do.”

 

“That’s bullshit, you know it,” Tony’s eyes narrowed, “He put on that gauntlet. He snapped his fingers. He didn’t think about the repercussions, because kids don’t _do_ that. He just…he just did it.”

 

He gulped, and finished, “Impulsive… _stupid_ …mistake.”

 

Pepper blinked, disapproving. Maybe because May had been over many times for coffee…Pepper had invested a lot of time into Peter’s aunt, into helping her. Into being a friend to her. And May would not approve of Tony’s thought processes. Tony couldn’t help but be angry though, he was so, so angry sometimes it _burned_. Like Hell fire, climbing out of his throat and threatening to eat him alive. She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but ringing interrupted her. Tony reached into his pocket, pulling out his cellphone to see Banner’s name appear on the screen. He cleared his throat, before pressing it to his ear…

 

“Not really a good time, Bruce.”

 

_“Tony.”_

The voice was warning. So much so, Tony felt a shiver run up his spine. Not warning in an angry way but warning in a shaken way. Bruce’s voice wasn’t trembling per se, but it sounded almost breathless. Tony made eye contact with Pepper and she must have seen him grow pale because her eyebrows furrowed into concern. Tony tried to steady his sudden anxiety and he questioned firmly, trying not to sound afraid, “What’s up?”

 

_“You need to come to the hospital, right now.”_

It wasn’t even ominous. Not a hint towards more pain and suffering, like laying Peter down on the med table, his healing being the only thing keeping him alive.

 

_Peter’s eyes stared directly at Thanos, glowing, hand on fire – and Tony – fuck, he had to stop him –_

_The boy’s order was simple…_

_“Get away from my friends.”_

 

_Flash._

“Why?” Tony’s voice was…well, it held firm, but he was frightened underneath, “Bruce, why?”

 

‘He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead – ‘

 

The world was going forward without Peter. Always, it seemed.

 

But then…it was rewinding.

 

_“He’s awake. Tony, he’s **awake**.”_

The phone slipped from between his fingers, thudding into the grass softly.


	6. Dive From the Top

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter stared, eyes round - bloodshot - broken and Tony tried not to let his hand shake as he tethered the kid to the coherent world around them.
> 
> Peter breathed, shock speaking volumes, “You’re back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm such a turd please someone make me focus on my other WIPs for a SECOND ugh...I hope you guys enjoy this nevertheless haha

_They bonded over their respective losses._

_Mister Barnes was grieving a lot, Peter noticed, and he figured he only saw it because he knew what it looked like. Plus, with only pieces of the Compound finished, their residential areas were relatively close to each other. They were having to get used to each other’s presence, and ever since that day Peter had refused to come down from the tall piece of debris and had made Mister Barnes upset with him, things were kind of weird. Mostly because Peter wasn’t good at cooperating with their restrictive schedules, them watching him._

_“I know you have something better to do,” Peter whispered, sitting in the lounge area. Mister Barnes looked up from the book her was reading, and it was weird, really weird, to see him doing that. Mister Barnes liked books, but Peter supposed when he imagined a super soldier, he had always thought…jock, something like that. Probably not a huge fan of books. But he noticed he read a whole lot._

_Peter continued, “Other than sitting here with me while I work my algebra problems.”_

_Mister Barnes stared. Silent. Sometimes it was hard to get a verbal response out of him. Even harder to read his expression. He set aside the book slowly though, and Peter swallowed, adjusting where he sat crossed legged in front of the coffee table with his stuff laid out in front of him. A part of him wanted to be screamed at. To be scolded for his stupidity the past several weeks. For someone to get angry about him taking the pills, to stop walking around like there was glass all over the ground around him._

_He was angry at himself, he wanted others to be angry at him too, to validate it._

_So Peter pushed before Bucky could respond, “I mean, you and Sam follow me everywhere. Always, there’s one of you walking behind him, like if I wanted to do something you could do anything to stop me.”_

_‘Get angry. Get angry. Get angry. Throw something at me, scream at me, because Aunt May, Doctor Purple, Doctor Strange…No one will do it – just do it.’_

_Bucky leaned forward on the couch and placed his elbows on his knees. He hummed, and Peter was almost startled by how…soft he sounded. How it wasn’t aggressive in the slightest and Peter realized he had lost._

_“We follow you, because we know. We follow you, because **you** don’t know.”_

_Peter gritted his teeth, “What don’t I know?”_

_Bucky blinked._

_“How not to let it consume you.”_

It consumed.

 

Peter’s eyes opened, fluttering and rolling back as the remnants of a drug got a foot hold. Someone’s fingers were forcing the lid open, and Peter let out a sound of discomfort as a bright light shone through the blackness. When the hand pulled away, it immediately went to the next eye, shining that same bright light in without mercy. Peter inhaled sharply, trying to squirm away and he turned his head just enough to break free, blurry vision finding focus beside him on the bed. He was lying back, on the same mattress as before, but his hands were pulled upward, restraints holding tightly to him.

 

He tugged, something rattled, almost like chains and Peter was reminded of waking up after a particularly bad moment in the hospital, after The Hiccup. And he had been strapped down, much like that. Only for a few hours, only until he could calm down. It was brief, but it was enough to have made him borderline insane. So he yanked, the whirling in his head, the ringing in his ears, it grew louder, as if a bomb had gone off. The voices started trying to come into focus, but they sounded like they were underwater until a hand found his face and forcefully turned his head.

 

Doctor Banner.

 

“…-eter…Peter,” Focus arrived, and the man – he wasn’t the Hulk – what the fuck? “Peter, listen, you need to calm down, okay? We’re just running some tests.”

 

A voice he didn’t recognize said from behind him, “He should’ve been out longer than that.”

 

“You didn’t use an enhanced sedative,” Banner spoke, looking away from Peter just a moment, “His metabolism burned through it. Part of why I would have preferred us speak to him calmly outside, so he wouldn’t wake up even more confused than before.”

 

Silence followed and Peter tugged on the restraints again, trying to find words but his mouth was so dry he could hardly swallow. He tugged and tugged and tugged and Banner finally looked back down at him before he shushed, “Hey, calm down –“

 

“Should we run a CT? This isn’t…the scans had low activity just last week – this doesn’t make any sense…”

 

The unfamiliar voices were followed by several others and Peter looked over to see people in scrubs. Peter’s eyes watered, and he pulled away from them towards the opposite side of the bed. Even if something was wrong – if Bruce didn’t look how he had when Peter last saw him – this was the only familiarity he had. Bruce’s hand grabbed his shoulder, and it squeezed before reassuring, maybe noticing the attempt of escape, “It’s okay…it’s fine, Tony hired all of them – they’ve all been checked out.”

 

_Tony._

_‘Mister Stark is dead!’_

Summoning Lilith had been a hail Mary at best, he had never imagined – well, it was just something to do. Something to try. A last resort in a pool of suffering and grieving because – God…Mister Stark never gave up on him. He hadn’t given up on trying to bring him back and in return he had been saved from that world, from being ash, from being alone.

 

Peter breathed.

 

He shook his head, chest quaking.

 

“N…no, no, no,” Peter whispered, sobs bordering on hysterical. It couldn’t work, it shouldn’t have worked, but Lilith – the mark in his skin – everything, it had been real, and he had done it. Mister Stark…his wish, it was all making sense but it was wrong. Peter knew it was wrong, and he inhaled deeper this time, tugging harsher on the restraints, “No, no, no! You don’t understand!”

 

Doctor Banner leaned downward, shushing again, pushing on his shoulders. Peter insisted, “You have to let go, you don’t understand – you don’t get it!”

 

“Peter, you’re confused,” Doctor Banner insisted, “We’re all here to help, but you have to lie still.”

 

Peter’s throat sounded shrill, “No you don’t _understand_! I’m not supposed to be here – I-I-I…Oh God, I did something – I…I’m –“

 

Peter tried to find the words he wanted to follow. Wanted to hold onto, but he could not, because nothing was making sense and there wasn’t anything to grasp. Peter inhaled sharply and tugged – tugged – tugged until pain was radiating from the arm with the scars, the lightning markings running up and down him. He had grown used to losing scars so quickly, to his body healing them, there was little understanding behind that fact, but the pain didn’t deter his thrashing. It intensified, like an animal caught in a trap and Doctor Banner wasn’t listening, he hadn’t even heard him –

 

“Peter?”

 

Then, the softest voice Peter knew.

 

Doctor Banner stepped aside, and Peter’s view of the door opened up. Standing there in the entrance, wearing a bright yellow t-shirt, clear as day, was Aunt May. Relief welled, like finally seeing her in the hospital after The Hiccup, and God, he had been embarrassed, ashamed, he had hated himself for making her cry, but he had been so relieved to see her it was impossible to describe.

 

Then Peter felt that all over again.

 

Aunt May rushed towards him, but someone appeared behind her and grabbed her arm. Happy, his face concerned, and Peter squirmed again in the holdings. His heart hammered, and he wanted Happy to let her go, to let her approach him. Just so he could have something he recognized with him. Peter leaned forward, and looked at Bruce with pleading eyes before he croaked, “Please, please, let her – please…”

 

“Happy,” Doctor Banner waved his hand, “Let her go.”

 

And Happy did, almost immediately. Concern was still on his face, but Aunt May practically lunged towards the bed. She whispered under her breath, “Oh my God, Peter – oh my God – “

 

Her hands cupped his face gently, before her eyes found his wrists where they were bound. She made a face, something disgruntled and disturbed before her hands immediately started working on the clasps. Doctor Banner tried to intervene, but she swatted his hands away and snapped in a venomous voice Peter had only heard a few times in his life, “You’re not going to chain him up like an animal!”

 

“He was confused,” Doctor Banner responded calmly, “They’re there to protect him. He was thrashing, he only just woke up and we’re going to need to run some tests – this isn’t…there isn’t much of a protocol here but we’re going to need to cover some basics.”

 

May responded continuing to work on the restraints, “Well, you can run the tests without him bound.”

 

Suddenly, Peter’s wrist was freed, followed by the next one. The moment his other arm was released, Peter shot forward, immediately wrapping his arms around her neck. Peter inhaled the familiar smell of her shampoo and his weight pulled her down a bit, but she hugged him back just as tightly, shushing him, “It’s okay, you’re okay.”

 

“N-no – you don’t…” Peter still couldn’t make his voice coherent and everything was so messed up he could hardly wrap his mind around it, “You don’t understand, Aunt May – I woke up and – “

 

A crack, then, “I was alone.”

 

_Like the bathroom – the pills – the bright lights._

Aunt May ran her fingers through the back of his hair, the curls pulling, tangled and she murmured, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, honey I just – God, its been so long I didn’t think to – I was at work…I didn’t think to stay…its been so _long_.”

 

So long. So long. How long? Peter had only just – Lilith had only _just_ thrown him down the hole, it seemed like. But, well, if Tony was…If he was alive, then where was he? What had Lilith meant? The marks on his arm, and her words, and everything, it was trying to become sensical, but there was this deep imbedded piece of him that kept screaming, _no, no, no it’s not real, this is wrong_. It shouldn’t have worked, it wasn’t supposed to work. None of it. Because it was wrong.

 

Peter fought his tears, though they fell anyway, and tried not to be swallowed.

 

_“And you know how to stop it? From consuming?”_

_He and Mister Barnes had been staring at each other for several minutes, as if trying to wait each other out. But the silence had become unbearable for him – awkward and sixteen and confused out of his mind why the Winter Soldier was choosing to be soft with him there in the lounge of their repaired Compound. One that lacked Tony’s guidance. Cap’s leadership. Peter inhaled deeply and continued on, “Did you stop it from consuming you?”_

_“It never stops,” Bucky said, “You’ll fight it every day. I still fight it, for the people I miss.”_

_Peter’s lip started to tremble…_

_“Who do you miss?”_

_Mister Barnes looked sad, “All of them. But remembering them…what they fought and lived for…that’s why I choose to fight too.”_

_The man breathed…_

_“That’s why I refuse to be consumed.”_

_…_

 

_They were covered in dirt, gunk, bullshit and suffering._

_The hospital room was chaos, people being dragged in from all over the city, reappearing, not knowing what was happening. Confused people, people in car accidents, people just reforming and thinking they were still dead. God awful wails coming down the crowded hallways, but the Compound was destroyed – everything – gone. They needed somewhere to bring the kid, this was the closest, Bruce could barely fit through the doorway, nurses didn’t know what they were doing – why Iron Man and Captain America were there, ordering them around…Trying to save a kid who had radiation poisoning, whose body was trying to heal him, trying to save him –_

_“Banner!”_

_“I’m trying, Tony,” Bruce snapped, “Okay, I’m trying it’s just – it’s a lot of damage, okay? We’re going to have to run – there’s a lot of ground to cover, and his healing factor is trying to keep him alive, we’re doing the same just – give us time.”_

_Peter, on the bed, peeling the suit off, two layers of it. The melting on his charred arm, they were painstakingly trying to remove fabric from the burns without causing more damage, it was going to take time. But Tony didn’t feel like they had time – no time. Peter was dying. His lips had gone purple, he was ash white. Eyes half-lidded and void at the ceiling. Tony removed his own suit to move easier – had they won? Were they safe? Was there going to be another wave of attack?_

_No, because Peter…Peter had grabbed the gauntlet, had put it on – had done the unthinkable._

_Tony leaned over him, gently took his jaw in his hand, palm brushing the boy’s neck._

_“C’mon kid,” Tony croaked, and Peter’s eyes were unseeing, he wasn’t even looking at him, “C’mon Pete…I just got…You just came back, kid. Don’t do this. You don’t have permission to fucking do this.”_

_He inhaled._

_“Kid, I lost you once already.”_

_‘I lost the kid.’_

_He imagined Morgan under his hand, where that place in his heart had been void, even when holding her after her birth and he had realized…Had come to the conclusion that Peter had been more than just an intern, a mentee, and he took that thought – gripped it tightly in the palm of his hand – wondered where it had come from. Where – and what he was going to do with that new information._

_Someone pulled him away – Steve – always, and he looked at Tony with round, worried eyes…_

_“Tony, we gotta let them work.”_

“They’re working, Mister Stark, I promise!”

 

The nurse was following close behind him as he made his way down the hallway, wide strides, having removed the suit at the front door. Several elderlies had been startled by Iron Man’s sudden landing in front of the hospital, and the nurse must have been warned by Banner that he would be coming. Ever since Banner had chosen to revert, to go back – to whatever – to remove the brawn from the brain once more and be just Bruce Banner again…Things had been different – he had convinced him to stay at the hospital, to be the kid’s personal doctor. Things were fine rebuilding the Compound, everything was being handled, but Bruce…Tony needed a doctor they could trust, and he didn’t trust Strange anymore, not after letting the kid do what he did…

 

“Mister Stark!”

 

He said nothing, still ignored her. Second floor. Down the hall, sixth room on the right. He went towards it, hands in fists at his sides as he tried to calm the racing in his chest. Tried to make sense of the situation laid out before them. It was a lot to handle, that was simple, it was too much, but he looked at the tiled floor, counted – but then there were voices, people standing outside the sixth door on the right. Looking in and crowding around the door and for a moment – well, he was angry, but then he understood sort of. The kid in their hospital had been in a coma for three months – now he was awake…And it wasn’t normal. Most staff were on a need to know basis, only specific members of their medical team knew about the gauntlet.

 

A lot of them thought Peter had been injured in a car accident. Permanent brain damage.

 

One of the nurses saw him though and started frantically tapping on the others’ shoulders. Before he had even made it to the door, they were practically diving out of his way to make room for him to approach. His face was hard, daring them not to get out of his way, and he tried to remind himself of the understanding he felt but it was hard. He didn’t want to remember it because he was angry that they were there, angry Peter was an anomaly and then –

 

He rounded the corner.

 

The room was even more crowded, but he could see. He could see May Parker there, her back to him, and he could see Bruce hovering over her. What he couldn’t see, past a set of legs and a bloody knee was the boy – Peter – the kid Tony had spent months agonizing over. Constant reflex checks, bed sore treatment, IVs, feeding tubes, removing and reapplying. Brain scans, prognosis, watching a world recover but knowing there was a chance Peter never would wake up. May, late night conversations, the night she had gotten drunk off of the wine they had been saving for their anniversary, but he and Pepper had figured she needed it more.

 

Tony had rented a hotel room, one night, just so he could get drunk away from the prying eyes of his family.

 

They didn’t quite understand how to mourn someone who was still alive.

 

But they did, intensely, day after day. They missed him, and Tony had gone five years without him, had hugged him, and then had lost him again all in a matter of minutes. May had never even gotten to see him again, not until after the battle, when he was hooked to tubes and machines, radiation poisoning, mixing with what was already in his blood from the spider bite. His body trying to repair damage, leaving behind those odd scars on seemingly perfect skin that healed after the slightest of marring’s.

 

Tony could hear Peter sobbing though.

 

Sobbing meant crying, crying meant life. Like a newborn wailing into the world of the living.

 

Peter was _living_.

 

Tony nearly lost his footing, and someone – Happy – grabbed his elbow. He hadn’t even noticed him standing there, but he was, and Bruce turned, face concerned when he saw Tony. Worry creasing his brow. Bruce reached out and took May’s arm, causing her to turn slightly. Just enough, Tony could see the side of Peter’s pale cheek, face stained with tears and mouth chapped. He looked up at his aunt, eyes confused as to why she pulled away, but suddenly everyone was looking at Tony, including May and Peter.

 

May looked relieved to see him.

 

Peter looked…distressed.

 

Maybe that wasn’t the best word, but Tony couldn’t think of what the best word would be for the expression he was giving him. Horror, nausea, like seeing a ghost. Something – and Peter released his aunt, grabbing a hold to the sheets beside him. His mouth opened and closed and Tony could only compare him to a fish out of water, gasping for life.

 

Tony took a step closer and Peter’s chest started to heave heavily, and Tony thought maybe he should stop, give the kid time, but he was never patient and he tried to make himself stop, but he couldn’t. He just came closer and closer and closer, and Peter was blinking rapidly, like someone was repeatedly punching him. Tony wished he could find words, in the silence of the room, and Peter was still stifling sobs. One escaped his lips and he looked at May with something that resembled how Morgan looked at Pepper when she fell particularly hard –

 

“Peter, it’s Tony, you – you’re _alright_ …”

 

She sounded confused.

 

Perhaps they all were.

 

Tony reached out, taking Peter gently by the shoulder before squeezing. The attention turned to Tony once more. Peter stared, eyes round - bloodshot - broken and Tony tried not to let his hand shake as he tethered the kid to the coherent world around them.

 

Peter breathed, shock speaking volumes, “You’re _back_.”

 

It wasn’t what Tony was expecting. Maybe ‘what happened?’ or ‘where am I?’ but not ‘you’re back.’ Not such a resolute statement, and back from where? Tony hadn’t gone anywhere. Not since the battle. Tony’s brows tugged, and he didn’t understand it – but he felt guilty for some reason.

 

As if he had really abandoned Peter. Had really gone somewhere.

 

Tony’s hand slid upward, taking the side of Peter’s face as he leaned downward to be eye level. Peter was still looking at him like he shouldn’t have been there. Like he was something strange – like Tony was the person who had just woken from a three month coma. Peter’s mouth shook, and before Tony could speak, could ask, Peter whispered so softly Tony could hardly hear him…

 

“Hey, Mister Stark.”

 

His voice broke, and Peter continued, “You’re back…you’re back…you’re – you’re – “

 

Peter looked so lost. So…young and tired and the rims of his eyes were bright red. Peter just kept repeating those words, kept saying them like a mantra, and Tony put his other hand on the other side of Peter’s face and squeezed his cheek slightly to catch his attention as he shook his head, “I never went anywhere, kid.”

 

Peter tried to shake his head, but Tony’s hold was too tight. He shut his eyes, tears squeezing through and dampening Tony’s thumbs and he was so confused. He didn’t understand, but more left the kid’s lips, like slurred drunken speech.

 

“You were dead. You left. You – you died.”

 

“No, I didn’t,” Tony said.

 

Peter’s eyes snapped open and he insisted, “You did! You died!”

 

Peter attempted to move, but Tony pushed back, and several people stepped forward as well. Tony released the kid’s face, when Peter raised his hands to push, but Tony grabbed the kid’s forearms and squeezed a short warning of ‘please calm down, we’re in a room full of doctors with needles’ and coherence wasn’t making an appearance. Peter continued almost shrilly, “You were – you were dead!”

 

“Okay, okay,” Tony relented, a lie, but Peter was – Peter was not himself, “Okay, but I’m here now, I’m here with you and so is your aunt, okay? You’re safe, and you’re fine.”

 

An uneven breath exploded past Peter lips, and his shoulders hunched. The boy mumbled in a teary voice, “You left us.”

 

Tony hadn’t. But God, he was sorry.

 

He placed a knee on the mattress, sitting halfway, and he dipped enough to pull the kid close to keep his arms between them, some kind of control of the situation. To stop sedatives or whatever they were going to threaten the boy with. That was the last thing they needed. The thing that would destroy whatever trust they could grasp from the situation.

 

“I’m sorry…” Tony murmured into Peter’s hair while the kid shook under his arms, “I’m sorry I left.”

 

_Tony had been distracted._

_Had looked away for one damn second._

_But Strange, the water, and Tony had seen it. Had seen it in his eyes when he had held up a finger towards Tony. And Tony’s brows had furrowed. He had been confused, but then he had turned, had seen the lights glowing from Peter’s hand. Lightning traveling up and down his arm and suddenly Peter looked so much older than he was._

_Then Tony understood._

_They couldn’t be murdered on Titan._

_Maybe Strange hadn’t been trying to save Tony. Maybe he had known they would all be slaughtered if they didn’t give up the Time Stone._

_And it hadn’t been time for Peter to die._

_“Get away from my friends.”_

 

_Bright flash._

_And Peter left them._


	7. The Deep End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Peter,” Tony said, “Do you remember anything?”
> 
> It was a lie, when it left Peter’s mouth. Tony knew him.
> 
> “No.”

_"You’re angry with me.”_

_May’s voice was matter of fact. She didn’t even look at Tony where he was leaning against the wall on the other side of the room. He tried to tear his eyes from her, but when he did, he looked at Peter. He saw the kid’s arm, wrapped tightly in bandages. Saw his marred skin. Saw it all over again, the bright flash and then everything – everything. For him it was repetitive, a not victory – something that had not come in the way he had wanted. According to the media Tony Stark always got what he wanted._

_But not this._

_There was something spoiled and melancholy._

_“I expected you to be,” May continued, looking at Peter’s face, before her fingers slid over his purple, slowly healing, slowly repaired cheek. And yet, the brain didn’t heal. The insides were struggling. While the outside pulled itself together, the radiation had fried the inwards. “I…very much expected it. And I’m sorry you found out through Doctor Banner. I just didn’t know how to say it.”_

_Tony could have said it, so he did._

_“Say what? That you want to unplug him?”_

_May’s head finally turned in his direction, shiny eyes, teary. Her mouth trembled, “That’s not it, and that’s not fair. Doctor Banner said – well, you heard him. The damage is extensive, there’s little activity. Within weeks he could be completely…gone. Brain dead. Should I let it get to that point?”_

_“His factor could still save him,” Tony’s voice cracked, he tried not to let it, but it did, as he uncrossed his arms, pushing away from the wall and threw his hand out towards the teenager he had held in his arms, “Look, he already looks better than he did yesterday, or even the beginning of this week. He’s healing – “_

_“But not inside, you know this!” May interrupted, moving around the bed towards him. She grabbed a hold of his arm, and squeezed, pleading, “You know…so you have to understand why I’m conflicted. Why this is even on the table, you know I would never even consider this if I didn’t think it was the best decision for him. If I didn’t think it would save him from pain and suffering.”_

_The hand on his sleeve dragged him down into the ocean._

_The ocean…his ocean, it had become – well it had become vast, and endless._

_Tony ground the words from his lips, “If you want my blessing, I’m not giving it.”_

_May looked like she had been struck…but her head nodded…_

_“I didn’t expect you to…you always held him so tightly.”_

May’s brows were furrowed as she leaned over Bruce’s shoulder to look at the images on the MRI. Tony had been watching her, watching her expressions, gauging her reactions. The past several hours had been rather draining on everyone involved. Calming Peter had taken time, even more to get him into the machine. Unfaltering fear had latched onto the kid in a way that Tony wasn’t really sure how to approach properly. He seemed so…afraid. Not just of the waking world, but of – well almost of Tony.

 

_‘You died.’_

No matter his insistence that he hadn’t it seemed to struggle to creep into Peter’s brain. But it bloomed, eventually Peter had silenced, had appeared to think deeply, had stopped speaking all together besides a few words here and there. The hysteria had finished, but Peter had trembled when Tony had helped him out of the wheelchair to lie on the table in order to slide into the machine. 

 

Had almost shied away from Tony’s hands.

 

The world had been so messed up. Destroyed. Put back together, but Peter had been this missing piece, as people reformed from ash, Peter had never actually come home to them. Now by some…otherworldly miracle he was back. Awake. And yet the confusion was clear, everyone was walking on eggshells. Peter’s upset had been almost mind boggling and confusing. Tony struggled to understand it. But he relied on the fact that Peter was probably just disoriented. Had been asleep so long, he didn’t know where he was.

 

May had her hand over her mouth, “I just don’t understand…”

 

“That makes all of us,” Tony turned away from the window he was staring through at the bottom of Peter’s feet. He then gestured to Banner and all but snapped, “Do you understand this? I mean, if you did, I would assume you wouldn’t be sitting there with this dumbfounded look on your face. You’d be coming up with some sort of explanation as to why that kid is awake in there.”

 

It wasn’t a bad thing. Really, it wasn’t…it just didn’t…it didn’t make sense.

 

They were going to unplug him just a few weeks ago, for Christ’s sake.

 

Bruce finally looked at him. Bruce’s eyes that had returned to him, in all that treatment, trying to turn him back – it had been one of Tony’s last acts as Iron Man was to help Bruce turn back into himself. To _be_ himself again. After the war…the brawn had seemed so unnecessary. An emptiness had seemingly taken their lives. They didn’t know…really how to _be_ after the war. After everything. The rest of the world felt the same. They were readjusting to a void, and becoming Bruce Banner, it had been a part of that. Smothering the Hulk inside of it.

 

Besides funding the Compound repairs…Helping Bruce had been a final act.

 

The focus was moving on and holding onto Peter’s ounce of life. And it had seemed to change everything around them.

 

Bruce leaned back in the chair, putting a hand over his mouth and it ran down his chin as he removed his glasses and shrugged…

 

“I can’t find anything,” Bruce breathed, “The brain damage…organ damage…it’s just – it’s untraceable. It’s like since I checked on him yesterday he just…miraculously healed overnight.”

 

_‘You’re back.’_

_‘You died.’_

God, he didn’t know why that was digging into him like a needle under his stomach. He leaned down, placing both hands on the table in front of him as he turned his attention back towards the window. Towards Peter’s feet. Tony mumbled under his breath, “Miraculous healing…”

 

Tony wasn’t sure he believed in miracles. Maybe beating Thanos could be considered a feat. A miracle, but Tony wasn’t so sure. This – this felt…almost too good to be true. And Tony felt guilty for feeling that way. For feeling skeptical, but he shouldn’t have been. He heard May ask from behind him, “Could it just have been a delayed reaction from his healing factor?”

 

“Three months is a hell of a delay,” Tony answered, “He was at a standstill. A plateau. Hadn’t improved in weeks, and now all of a sudden he’s lucid and – what about his head? Did you check his head?”

 

He whirled to face Bruce and he gestured to the screens, “We just did a scan – “

 

“His actual head, there was damage…” Tony pressed the button on the board in front of them, causing the machine to slowly begin to slide outward. He then moved to the door, exiting the small office before entering into the room where Peter was emerging. The kid started to sit up almost immediately, onto his elbows and he looked at Tony, eyes widening almost immediately upon seeing him, having that same look of fear and shock mixed into one.

 

Tony took Peter’s arm and ordered, “C’mon, sit up a sec.”

 

Peter didn’t reply, hadn’t been replying to most of Tony’s verbal attempts at communication. The kid slung his legs over the side of the table, staring up at Tony. Maybe Tony was too forward, because he immediately ran his fingers through the right side of Peter’s hair, over his scalp, prodding. Peter flinched heavily, brows tugging down in confusion. Nothing, nothing protruding, none of the tell-tale signs of scarring.

 

All that remained were the Lichtenberg figures on his arm.

 

“Well?” Bruce’s voice questioned from the doorway.

 

Tony sighed, dropping his hand, as Peter continued to look at him. Tony tried to give a reassuring smile, but it was hard, considering how perplexed he was about everything. He forced it though, the way he had been forcing the smiles he had given Morgan after Peter’s initial injury. Peter looked like he wanted to return the smile, but he hesitated and Tony looked over his shoulder and replied, “Nothing…”

 

It was from there that they moved Peter back towards his room down the hallway in this not-bitter silence. Just perplexed quiet, and nurses stared at them as they rolled Peter in the chair. The kid had been odd to begin with, his own personal doctor, own personal set of nurses, they were really just using the hospital for the facilities because only pieces of the Compound were repaired. Some of the residential areas and such. It wasn’t ready for full blown patient care. Especially not for what Peter had needed just yesterday.

 

 Tony was somewhat offended by their staring, though he didn’t know why. He didn’t know why it rubbed him the wrong way, why he just wanted people to give the kid a break. But soon they were shrouded in the safety of Peter’s hospital room, both Bruce and Tony assisting Peter into the bed. His knee was still wrapped, healing slow. Reliable, but it took time...Even if the healing factor had let them down for three months.

 

Peter scooted onto the bed, wincing slightly, seemingly unaware of the three pairs of eyes watching him almost curiously. When he was adjusted, legs hanging off the side of the bed, he finally acknowledged the adults by looking up at them. His eyes scanned amongst them, before settling on Bruce.

 

Peter finally spoke a sentence.

 

“So…so you’re not…green anymore?”

 

Tony was initially amused, but then…confused really. More and more confusion. He swallowed, tilting his head as he looked at Bruce and then at May. They wore the same expressions as he did, and Tony instead answered, clearing his throat, “How did you know he was green?”

 

Peter blinked, “What?”

 

“Hulk,” Tony clarified, “You were only back for – what…twenty minutes tops before everything went…down. How did you know?”

 

Peter’s mouth turned into a line. Briefly. Then a frown, before his head started to shake back and forth with hesitance. His mouth then opened, remained open, deeply and suddenly halted as his shoulders raised and he started to shrug. Peter whispered quietly, “I…dunno…”

 

Tony waited…Waited for more, but it never came. And he couldn’t tell if it was a lie or not because Peter’s voice was so exhausted. It was seemingly shrouded in lethargy. Tony grimaced, tried to think of an explanation for it by himself, but it was hard. It was hard to answer questions for someone that was now awake. Peter twiddled with his fingers, before he cleared his throat and looked back up. His eyes met Tony, but they flitted away – they kept flitting away like Tony’s gaze burned or something.

 

Peter looked at the wall…

 

“What happened to me?”

 

This time May responded with, “What do you mean?”

 

“What _happened_ to me,” Peter repeated, sounded almost strangled, “What – what did I…I mean obviously I got hurt and – and…Did I…”

 

Peter’s chest didn’t heave, but it expanded wide and closed…His brain seemed to be recalling something, maybe a memory – surprise and then Peter was exhaling.

 

“Did I…put it on?”

 

Void. At least, it felt void to Tony. The entirety of this conversation. Like shouting down a deep well of inconsistency. Peter couldn’t remember what had happened to him – but knew Bruce had been green and…there was something shaky and unnerving and Tony was forming questions, but May approached before he could voice them. She slowly sat beside Peter on the edge of the mattress and she took his unscarred hand in her own. Her eyes were glassy and sad, Tony imagined Bruce’s arm that had been scarred as the Hulk, healed, and he wondered why Peter’s wouldn’t. He wondered – and wondered – and the edge.

 

May waited, before she answered his question softly, smoother than Tony thought he was capable of producing, even though he had five years of parental experience under his belt now. She said, “Yes, Peter. You put on the gauntlet and you…”

 

She looked at Tony. Information was vague. She knew the Snap, but the reality of it was something that had been ignored. It didn’t matter – Peter had been hurt by the gauntlet, stopping Thanos – that had been all she needed to know and all she wanted to know. The rest was a whirlwind of trying to save Peter’s life and what was left of his brain. Peter blinked at her, over and over again, his throat bobbing. He looked odd, he was taking the information oddly. Peter just…looked around the room – eyes going glassy as if coming to a conclusion about something – coming up with a theory that was solving a puzzle.

 

Tony stepped forward, pulling Peter from those thoughts. Peter looked up at him – that same stare. The one of disbelief, like seeing a ghost, like Peter had really thought he was dead. And Tony kneeled down slowly in front of him, hesitating before placing a hand on Peter’s knee and squeezing. The kid nearly flinched again, but fought it down and Tony watched him hide it – pocket it away.

 

The man swallowed hard, then shook his head.

 

“Peter,” Tony said, “Do you remember anything?”

 

It was a lie, when it left Peter’s mouth. Tony knew him.

 

“No.”

 

The world had been so weird without him. Five years, then three months – a long, long time of isolation and agony and just overall suffering. Tony squeezed Peter’s knee harder, not enough to hurt but enough to grab his attention as he pushed, “Are you _sure_?”

 

“Tony,” Bruce sounded confused, behind him, maybe a bit worried.

 

Peter’s eyes flickered to Bruce, then back down to Tony. Peter nodded, “Yes sir.”

 

Tony’s eyes bloomed.

 

_‘Why are you lying to me?”_

Peter’s only disappeared from him…

 

_‘It’s something…awful.”_

_…_

Peter supposed he had survived worse interrogations.

 

But very few things compared to the look on Tony Stark’s face when he wanted answers. Answers that Peter just wasn’t willing to provide and he realized a few minutes in that he had probably screw up royally by bringing up the fact that Bruce had been the Hulk. Of course…this version of himself wouldn’t know that. He had deciphered a few things…A list:

 

  * Hulk was not Hulk anymore, he was Bruce Banner now.
  * The Battle occurred three months ago.
  * Peter snapped his fingers.



 

Really, they were all things Lilith had either warned him about before pushing him in the hole or things he should have been able to decipher on his own. He should have known the logistics of it, but he hadn’t. Which he tended to…not? Bruce, he floated around in an island of isolation trying to figure things out, and Mister Stark’s expression could not be at the top of his list of things to worry about. Maybe it was all in Peter’s head anyway…Mister Stark had excused himself only a few minutes later, night had started to fall…The tests ceased for the day and they still couldn’t find anything wrong with him.

 

So, whatever Lilith had done…she had healed him.

 

Peter stared at himself in the mirror, fogged from a shower. His chest was exposed, a fresh pair of pajamas to put on laid on the counter. Safe from those hospital gowns finally. Peter ran his hand over the glass, looking at his face, pale, and then down at his chest…Remembering the sensation of Lilith’s hand being there, and the marking was gone – nonexistent, but it was almost like he could feel the pain of it under his skin. Like it was lurking and waiting and Peter felt sick to his stomach at the thought.

 

Peter shifted, chewing on his fingernail. There was a lot to figure out. Mister Stark was alive – and Peter had done something really, really stupid. Something completely and utterly insane. Summoning a demon – selling ones soul, it was all very… _Stupid, insane_ …Peter nearly vomited. His eyes burned and he scrubbed at them sniffling slightly as he tried to gain control of the rising anxiety. His hands trembled and he inhaled when there was a knock at the door.

 

“You okay in there?”

 

Aunt May…Peter cleared his throat and called out, “Y-Yeah just putting on the pajamas.”

 

He started to slip them on, hurrying as he did so. A part of his mind flitted back to where he had come from, no locking doors, if he didn’t answer soon enough it got kicked down. But he realized here, he had never taken those pills, he hadn’t been alive – well, more so, he had been in a coma. It wasn’t possible. Tony had never died, there was never that trigger that had made him so desperate in the first place.

 

He finished dressing, and within the next hour Peter was practically tucked into bed like a five-year-old again, lights out and Aunt May having pulled a chair up close to the bed. The television was the only thing lighting up the room around them. Her fingers carded gently through his hair and Peter relaxed to the sensation, eyes threatening to roll shut as he tried to pay attention to the nightly news. She seemed tired too, and Peter appreciated the silence, but fear made it hard to relax completely even if exhaustion was begging to take hold.

 

It was nice…the moment. Peter hadn’t gotten to see Aunt May much, but he wondered if this was his Aunt May…or someone else’s. If he had taken over a different Peter, if his Aunt May was still existing somewhere in the pockets of the universe. If Peter just didn’t understand how this worked and he kept rubbing that sore spot over his chest, kept prodding it, kept expecting her to appear, to explain things to him. He felt like he had been dropped in the middle of the mine field with no indication of which way was up or down.

 

He didn’t know what to do or where he was…

 

“You feeling okay?” Aunt May broke the silence, hand still combing his hair back, curled from the shower, “You’re so quiet, does your head hurt? Are you hungry?”

 

Peter shook his head. He hadn’t felt hungry, not after watching them pull those tubes and stuff out of him. They had removed…something…that had been feeding him while he was asleep. And he didn’t appreciate it, not one bit. Machines had been keeping him alive. Peter chewed his lower lip, as she continued, “Maybe we can cut your hair tomorrow, hm? I haven’t touched it while you were asleep, scout’s honor.”

 

His mouth upturned, but the weight and the thought of Lilith made him frightened. And the distrust on Mister Stark’s face, the confusion, he was – there were questions and Peter didn’t know how to answer them. What would Mister Stark do when he found out this wasn’t _his_ Peter? Peter just – he struggled to imagine. So he inhaled and tried his best to breathe deeply, to calm his racing heart. She paused in smoothing his hair before gently swiping a thumb over his cheek.

 

“God, I missed you. I missed your voice.”

 

Her eyes were teary and Peter inhaled sharply, the apology bursting forth, “I’m sorry.”

 

“What for?” She murmured.

 

Peter looked away from her, because he couldn’t stare into her eyes while he apologized for something he didn’t remember, and hadn’t done. He explained, “I’m sorry for…for leaving you…for doing what I did.”

 

Her jaw dropped, she looked almost appalled by his words as she took his hand into her own and squeezed tightly, “Hey no, no…Don’t apologized for that. What you did that day…what you did for everyone – this entire universe…It was _so_ incredibly brave. You saved everyone. You did that.”

 

But he hadn’t. Because in his universe, he was a coward.

 

Tony had to do it for him.

 

Peter’s attention drew away for a moment when the television flickered in the corner of his eye. He turned, looking up at where it hung high on the wall. It was a news channel, almost too quiet to hear, but the headline was bright and giant enough to read. He supposed that was what grabbed his attention in the first place…but what held it was a simple announcement…

 

**_Steve Rogers Oversees Avengers Compound Construction_ **

****

Without delay, there was a far off shot of cameras zooming in on none other than Captain America standing in the rubble, speaking to several men in hard hats. Peter almost vomited, when he looked at who was standing beside him – for one…Cap wasn’t supposed to be there anymore – Cap had left them…To fix things on their own, to rebuild…And – and – and

 

There was Natasha Romanoff.

 

“Peter,” His aunt’s hand tightened in his own, “Hey…hey are you okay?”

 

Peter’s head yanked towards her, and he pointed to the television, “W-what are they doing?”

 

Aunt May looked concerned and confused as she glanced at the television and then back towards her nephew. Peter felt like an elephant had just sat on his chest and she replied slowly, as if speaking to a wild animal, “They’re…honey, they’re just working to rebuild the Compound after the battle. Tony left Steve and Natasha to oversee reestablishing the Avengers, rebuilding, you know…the whole shebang. Tony wanted to be with Pepper and Morgan, so he’s just funding things – “

 

“They shouldn’t _be_ there,” Peter insisted sharply.

 

Then May wore the same look Tony had.

 

Something…of distrust maybe.

 

“Why not?”

 

“They just – “ Peter stumbled over the words, “They…They…It doesn’t make any sense. None of this makes sense. She died, she died and Cap – he left, and it makes…”

 

“Okay, okay, hey…” She stood from the chair, sliding her hand behind him before pulling him into a sitting position. Peter’s hand rose to his chest and he pressed down as he gasped for air. She ordered, “Breathe…Peter, breathe. Okay? You’re fine – they’re fine. Natasha isn’t dead, and Steve Rogers hasn’t gone anywhere. I’m pretty sure he hasn’t left ground zero since day one of construction.”

 

Peter looked like he was pleading…

 

“How did they get the Soul Stone? How? Someone had to – someone…they told me someone had to die.”

 

May’s face fell. She whispered, “ _Who_ is telling you these things?”

 

“Answer me,” Peter ordered, “A-answer the question, who died?”

 

She chewed her lower lip. Her eyes looked away, and her shoulders raised and fell. She then swallowed, “I…I don’t know all the details. I really don’t, I didn’t ask a lot about that stuff, all I cared about was you, but I do know that – well, they lost someone. One of the core members, it was all over the news for weeks.”

 

Peter waited, and finally she said, “Clint Barton…they said he sacrificed himself. But…I don’t know anything beyond that. And you’re worrying me – who told you that? Who told you someone had to die?”

 

_‘The Avengers, Aunt May…Just not **these** Avengers.’_

He blinked, tears pooling as he looked at the television again. His shoulders raised and fell, much like he had done to Tony earlier. He mumbled, “I don’t know.”

 

“Don’t tell me that,” May sounded like she was pleading, and Peter couldn’t look, “Please, talk to me…”

 

_“Peter, please talk to me.”_

_Peter stared out the window, legs pulled tightly to his chest. The hospital overlooked the courtyard below. People sat, laughing, and free of walls around them and Peter rested his chin on his knee, eyes burning but he wouldn’t look at her. Not where she stood in the doorway. She exhaled, shakily, and he knew she too was crying._

_“It’s only for a little while,” She insisted, “And I’ll come all the time. The Compound is the safest place for you, outside of the city, where you can rest and there’s room to breathe. It’ll be good, you’ll see.”_

_Silence wavered._

_“I’m asking you to talk to me.”_

_And so, Peter did, a tear breaking through and marring his face._

_“It’ll only hurt you if I do.”_

Peter held his eyes shut.

 

He said nothing.

 

…

 

_“How is everything?”_

Pepper’s voice was something relieving to hear, after hours bent over scan after scan. Blood work, tests, the whole nine yards and still finding no explanation to why or how Peter was awake just a few floors above him in the hospital. Tony sighed, placing a hand on his hip as he looked at the light polluted sky above his head. He kicked the toe of his shoe into the sidewalk before he responded, “It’s…a clusterfuck.”

 

_“Careful, you’re on speaker and Morgan is down the hall.”_

“A flustercluck,” Tony amended, “In any case, yeah…that’s what it is. I think we’ve run every test under the sun. No sign of radiation damage, brain abnormalities, no muscle degeneration from lying in bed for three months, and no outward marring besides the marks on his arm. It’s almost like…an instantaneous fix. The nurses who saw him that morning said he was still the same skinny, sick looking kid that had been in the hospital with them for months and then all of a sudden that afternoon things…changed. And I can’t imagine why.”

 

_“Maybe it’s like you said…a delayed reaction from his healing factor.”_

 

“Maybe,” Tony mumbled under his breath. He glanced at the sliding doors, then back down at the ground. He continued, “But…there’s something else. He kept…he kept saying I was dead and he knew about Bruce having been green a few months ago – stuff he shouldn’t have known and besides – I’m not dead. Never have been. But he keeps insisting I was and now he’s shutting down and refusing to talk about it anymore.”

 

 _“Could have heard something in his sleep,”_ Pepper suggested.

 

“This isn’t a movie where someone is being fed information during their coma, Pep,” Tony pinched the bridge of his nose, trying not to be frustrated because he knew she just wanted to help, “This kid was brain dead yesterday, and today he’s walking and talking and not to mention his muscle mass and brain capacity are one hundred percent. There should be deficits.”

 

_“Tony, if we’re talking ‘should be’s’ he should be dead…But he’s not, because he somehow survived that gauntlet frying him. This is a good thing, for all of us. Especially May, you know how she has been…and you…God, Tony you haven’t been the same – not for five years. This is a chance to start over with him.”_

Tony inhaled, “Something is wrong – “

 

He was cut off when a voice called from the doors, “Tony!”

 

Tony turned and standing there was Bruce. He gestured for Tony to come inside and Tony spoke into the phone, “I gotta go, love you.”

 

Before he got a response he was hanging up and moving towards the man in the doorway. He followed him into the lobby of the hospital and questioned softly, sticking his phone in his pocket, “What’s up? Find something in his results?”

 

“Not his results,” Bruce corrected, “Just…follow me.”

 

Tony’s brows furrowed, but he followed the doctor nonetheless. Into the elevator, up to the fifth floor, ninth room on the left that wasn’t actually even a room but Bruce slid his key card to get inside. The moment they entered, Tony was enveloped in darkness that was broken by the glow of several security monitors. Bruce was rushing, practically running as he approached one of the desks and started to type.

 

Tony walked up behind him and said, “Uhhh…so we gonna watch that doctor and nurse make out of something - ?”

 

“Shut up,” Bruce ordered and the tone of his voice made Tony’s skin crawl a little with worry, “Just…look.”

 

Bruce stepped aside and Tony saw on the screen was an image from Peter’s hospital room. Tony casted him a confused glance and Bruce explained, “This is from approximately 2:02 in the afternoon…but look what happens at the .22 mark.”

 

Tony leaned forward, close to the image. Bruce pressed the enter button, and the video started to play. A bit grainy. Moments passed before Tony saw – he flinched back – blinking several times as his brain tried to process what he had just seen. Tony looked at Bruce, mouth opening and slightly parted – and he ordered…

 

“Play it again.”

 

And he did…

 

Again, and again, and again…

 

At the .22 mark, something happened. The image jumped, a bright flash, the room was enveloped in the light for just a split second. Peter’s vitals on the screen lifted almost immediately, and Tony pressed the keyboard, rewinding once more – focusing and zeroing in on the wall near Peter’s bed.

 

A dark shadow.

 

Looming.

 

“Either we just witnessed something miraculous,” Bruce whispered, “Or something really, _really_ wrong is going on here.”

 

Bright flash. Shadow. Vitals lifting.

 

Tony bit his tongue and the words tasted like acid in his mouth.

 

“Call Strange.”


	8. A Drop in the Ocean

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “In the grand scheme of things, yes, it was a small price. I didn’t want to sacrifice that boy, Stark, but I did. We had to. But that – on that screen, it makes no sense…because that isn’t…that isn’t the scenario I chose…the boy should be dead or asleep. And that – that right there on that footage, should have never come to pass…”
> 
> “What are you talking about?” Bruce questioned.
> 
> “There was a choice…between two lives,” Strange breathed, “Between the boy…and Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so yall know I know nothing about science, I'm making this stuff up. Don't fact check me on how the multiverse works I'm not skilled in the STEM areas XD but enjoy! Thank you so much for all the love, this has been so amazing to work on so far!

_“Doctor Strange is a problem.”_

_Peter’s chin raised in false confidence, viable for only a moment in their tiny room. Doctor Purple, who hated the name, looked at him as if perplexed by the accusation. Week after week of the bullshit passed on without anyone so much as blinking an eye, forcing him back into a reality – an existence he didn’t want to be in. A world without Mister Stark wasn’t much of a world at all, it was a tragedy waiting to happen. They seemed to be just steps away from the next Big Bad, and who would that be? Who would stop them?_

_Doctor Purple questioned, and she sounded annoyed, she always sounded that way though. No one else seemed to hear it – when Peter mentioned it to the adults they said he was reading too much into something that was not there, which only made him feel more alone. So he ignored, felt indignant._

_Most of all, he felt silenced by the very people who were telling him to speak._

_It was as if he was supposed to talk, but only about the things that they wanted to hear about – and that was confusing. Not that he was angry with Aunt May – he was not – no never, not her, she was listening to advice from other people and Peter started to think it was himself making these things up. Thinking people were out to get him – but at least he was self-aware of that fact. Nausea crept in, and Peter held his abdomen where his knees were pulled up and he was sitting sideways in the cushy chair._

_Finally, his brain quieted enough to hear her question:_

_“Why Doctor Strange?”_

_“He’s too involved,” Peter didn’t look at her, mouth frowning, as if perplexed, “Aunt May works, she has to pay our bills. She doesn’t hover – constant and breathing down my neck like something…something awful. But Doctor Strange, he’s always **there**. Always asking and asking shit I don’t even know how to answer.”_

_Doctor Purple hummed, “Are you sure he’s a problem? Or is it that you don’t want someone looking so closely at your behavior?”_

_Peter almost snarled, but it was a bitter smile as he finally met her eyes, and argued, “What behavior? I’m trying to – you know, I tried to do something very stupid. It was stupid. But Doctor Strange doesn’t have to keep reminding me of that fact by constantly hovering around me asking me stuff…”_

_She paused, silence, then finally…_

_“He said you’ve been asking about his books.”_

_Peter’s face almost collapsed, he turned and put his elbow on the armrest, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. It was like what little progress he made, whenever he thought he was close to going home – someone told on him and Doctor Purple acted like it was going to be another Attempt. There would be no more – not after watching Aunt May sob and ask over and over again what she could have done differently. It wasn’t premeditated, but they had acted like it was – it was impulsive._

_As were most things he did._

_When he said nothing, Doctor Purple sighed, “It’s alright to be curious, even I don’t know half of what Doctor Strange does. I’m only a psychiatrist, after all. But I do know from what he has told me – those are dangerous games to play. Deadly ones.”_

_“There are deadlier ones,” Peter snapped, turning his head to face her, mouth practically dripping with venom, “Like putting on a gauntlet and snapping your fingers just because some witch doctor says it’s the thing to do – or taking a handful of pills because the world is just going to forget and not even consider things could be different! It’s ignorance, and stupid, Mister Stark would – he would never just leave it at that, he would push the boundaries!”_

_Doctor Purple said, “And what makes you think that he would?”_

_“Because he’s Iron Man!” Peter sounded shrill, “He got us back, because he pushed, and he pushed – don’t try to lecture me on dangerous and deadly games, I’ve been playing them since I was fourteen!”_

_His face burned when he finished, his back hit the cushion behind him. His face melted into a bit of horror as he realized – well, it wasn’t like him to scream, especially not at an adult. He wasn’t like that. He ran both hands through his hair, shutting his eyes tightly and God – God what was wrong with him? Why couldn’t he just be himself? Doctor Purple’s voice was a gentle murmur across the expanse._

_“Peter…you’ve been playing them since you were fourteen. But you’re only sixteen.”_

_He wasn’t going to cry, so he kept his eyes shut and mumbled, “I’ll be seventeen in a few months.”_

_“Does that make much of a difference?”_

_Peter opened his eyes and answered, “It has to.”_

Happy was sitting in the chair, across the room, a magazine opened in his hands and his face unreadable. Peter felt awkward, sitting were they had propped the hospital bed upward, and his back was sore from not moving for so long. Aunt May had gone home to get fresh clothes – to shower and water plants. She had to call work, tell them she needed time off because of this miraculous thing that had occurred. So Happy was stuck on babysitting duty and Peter wasn’t so sure where everyone else was – where Mister Stark was…But it had been several hours since he had seen anyone familiar other than Happy.

 

Peter knew this wasn’t his Happy, his Happy back home who had seemingly disappeared after Peter’s Hiccup. After the Attempt, after and after and after. But he couldn’t get past the awkwardness that still clung on and he wondered if there was a way to avoid it all together. To stop piling it on and on top and Peter just swallowed thickly and dug his nail into his thumb, between the opposite nail and skin, scraping. Happy looked up from the magazine, before it suddenly rustled and shut and Peter looked up as if he had been struck.

 

“Listen, I know they’ve probably got you on meds,” Happy sighed, sounding irritated, “Or you’re still disoriented from your three-month nap…But you are oddly non-verbal right now – and I gotta admit, I’m feelin’ the awkward.”

 

Happy didn’t understand the awkwardness stemmed from abandonment. Peter swallowed thickly and tried not to think of how one of the last times he saw Happy it was while he was in the hospital. When they were all watching him like hawks, the initial impact still settling in. Peter looked down at the bedding, the itchy white hospital blanket, and he plucked at the lint. He asked, stupidly, knowing this was not his Happy…

 

“Are – are you mad at me?”

 

Happy looked taken aback, and the words rolled out without Peter’s permission, “For what I did, are you mad at me?”

 

But it was different. In this world, he hadn’t cowardly poured poison into himself – he had done what Mister Stark had done in his world. Happy set the magazine aside, and cleared his throat, face looking almost – baffled. Happy’s hands held outward, palms upward, and he questioned, “Why the hell would I be mad at you, kid? You…you did something brave.”

 

“Brave,” Peter echoed, voice cracking, “That…sounds like a lie.”

 

“Listen,” Happy shook his head, “I dunno if someone told you – you know, whatever, Tony was mad about what happened. He was mad that you put on the gauntlet, but Strange insisted it was the only way. So I think deep down he knew that was the truth. So if – if Tony said something to you, trust me, none of us are angry with you, okay? We know you were only trying to do the right thing, and you did. You did what you had to do, and the world was saved because of it.”

 

 Happy breathed…

 

“We just wished…we wished it didn’t have to be a kid to do it, especially not you.”

 

Peter looked and stared at Happy’s face, studying it and seeing the sincerity behind his eyes. A part of him wished this was genuinely the Happy he knew, because he had been so scared for so long to confront him about everything and the thoughts, and the worry of hatred. He wondered sometimes if the people he cared about despised him for what he had done, and if it came down to it, did these people despise him as well? They all seemed the same – it wasn’t like the movies where the universe change became opposites, the goods became dark. So Peter just inhaled that, let it settle within himself and he pretended not to notice.

 

“You’re a good friend, Happy,” Peter whispered.

 

Happy’s face looked…almost touched and soft. Kind. Different from his usual mask of annoyance.

 

“And you’re a good kid.”

 

…

 

Tony made Bruce call Strange because he was a coward.

 

It was as simple as that.

 

After their little fallout, following Peter putting on the gauntlet, he hadn’t spoken to him much. Hadn’t made an effort, despite the fact Rogers thought it was a good idea to keep in touch. Because Rogers and Romanoff still saw a use for the team – and there was, he supposed to a certain extent. But Tony didn’t even want to entertain the thought that anything bad could ever happen to their planet again. He didn’t want to pretend. So he avoided and ran from it. He gave them money – to shut them up. To help them rebuild, but he hoped and prayed to whatever was out there that no one would ever come to him again. He didn’t want that. He just wanted the kid, he wanted his family – the lake house. But he fucking knew, once that kid was better, if he got better, he would look to Rogers and the others. He would still dream of the Avengers, and Tony had half a mind to suggest to May they ship the kid off somewhere safe, a school or something – just so he wouldn’t have the option.

 

But that was something Howard would do, and Tony wasn’t Howard.

 

The room with the screens, the security cameras paused on the dark figure in the corner of the room, in the corner of Peter’s room, had Tony second guessing who exactly he was protecting – or what. And so his mind shifted, to Stephen, to the fact that they needed him now. It was nauseating because a part of him wanted Strange nowhere near Peter – but there were too many questions, and this wasn’t science, this was something else – stuff Tony hated because there was no box he could put it in. An anomaly with no scientific explanation, just…goddamn magic.

 

Tony hated magic. Mystical shit. It _scared_ him.

 

Twiddling his thumbs had become second nature, in the three months Peter was asleep. But when the door opened after what felt like an eternity of waiting, he nearly bolted out of the seat. Instead he stood, Bruce entering the room first, still wearing his lab coat. Following behind was of course, Strange. Tony lifted his chin a bit, despite the fact confidence was out the window considering they had been forced to swallow their prides and call the magician in the first place.

 

“Where’s your outerwear?”

 

“Not here,” Strange was always so quick to respond to his quips, “I thought it best to leave the theatricals at home considering I was going to be walking through the halls of a hospital.”

 

Tony hummed, “Afraid to see some old college buddies?”

 

“Something like that.”

 

They stared. Tony felt the familiar, stupid rage bubble up. Because how could he look in that kid’s eyes and know what was going to happen and yet do nothing to stop it? Tony teetered on asking and avoiding, because they were old wounds. Ones that had no place there in that room where they were meant to be finding out what the hell was going on. Strange broke that for him – gesturing outward towards the monitors. He said, “Doctor Banner said we have an...occurrence.”

 

Bruce was already moving, not giving Tony the chance to respond. Tony stepped aside as Bruce began to type on the computer, starting the footage over from the beginning, away from the pause on the screen. He began to explain, “Yes um…Okay, so basically – Peter woke up approximately nineteen hours ago. No deficits, no muscle deterioration…Nothing. As if he was never asleep in the first place. We started looking for an explanation – a medical one, but…It was hard, considering he has the healing factor and – “

 

“The point,” Strange waved his hand, approaching the screen as well, and Tony rolled his eyes.

 

“The point is,” Tony snapped, pointing at the computer, “There’s some fucking creepy shadow standing in the kid’s room at the .22 mark. After a bright flash – and the kid’s vitals jump to life. Now, I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t seem like anything medical. If anything – it’s something from one of your weird ass stories.”

 

Strange’s eyes narrowed, before he turned away from Tony fully and faced the screen. He ordered for Bruce to play it and the other doctor pressed the enter key, causing the footage to roll. The moments of normalcy passed, until the same bright light Tony had witnessed for the first time flashed across it, and Bruce paused it right when the shadow bloomed. A figure, one Tony could not make out. He also couldn’t see Strange’s expression, but he saw the way his back stiffened upon its appearance. Tony crossed his arms over his chest as silence wavered, and Bruce was staring at Strange’s face, visibly worried.

 

Second five, then ten, then twenty. They skipped by. Strange replayed it – over and over – just as Tony had done. The impatience was palpable, but Tony held his tongue. Ignored the fact this was the person who hadn’t been honest. ‘It won’t happen’. Fuck – was that true? Would none of them have done it, if they had known a child was going to have to? Tony just couldn’t believe that. He couldn’t. There had to have been more than just that 14,000,605.

 

It was _bullshit_.

 

It had to happen?

 

No.

 

He watched Strange’s fingers tighten, into fists, as they were on the table. Bruce’s voice finally broke the silence – realization hitting the both of them that Strange recognized something. Saw something that they could not. Knew what this was, maybe, by the way his shoulders had gone taut and he was looking downward in a deep thought.

 

“You know what this is…don’t you?”

 

Strange’s chest expanded. He turned slowly, so that he could face both men at the same time. Tony noticed he looked rather – chalky. Pale, and ashen around his cheeks. He leaned back against the table, mouth set deeply. Tony had questions, more and more on the tip of his tongue wanting to come to life – but they didn’t. Instead they remained choked in his throat behind something like fear. He just wanted to know what it was – what all of this was. Why Peter had woken up, why it felt off, and wrong. Strange looked down, “I should have seen it.”

 

“Seen what?” Tony growled, “Don’t start talking in riddles again, not like you did before, or Strange I swear to God – “

 

Strange looked at him, eyes ablaze, “Could you be quiet for all of two _seconds_? You don’t have the slightest clue what this is – you don’t know. Truthfully, I hardly do, it was a scenario, yes…But not _this_ one. Not here.”

 

Scenario. Scenario. That was always the topic with him, and Tony felt nauseas as old memories dug themselves out. But Tony quieted himself, shut his mouth with a snap. Waited and waited because hopefully Strange would offer the answers without him prying them from his teeth. There was a sigh on the wizard’s part, and he looked at the floor once more, shutting his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose. Strange swallowed, and finally – finally he looked at them like they were something worth speaking to.

 

“The…future…it’s terribly fragile,” Strange started in a whisper, “When I went through them…when I watched them, there was only one way. One way without terrible repercussions. This was the best option – Thanos would be defeated, the boy would be lost, yes, but…It was a small price to pay for the entire universe being restored.”

 

Tony hissed, “Small price…”

 

Strange continued, “In the grand scheme of things, yes, it was a small price. I didn’t want to sacrifice that boy, Stark, but I did. We had to. But that – on that screen, it makes no sense…because that isn’t…that isn’t the scenario I chose…the boy should be dead or asleep. And that – that right there on that footage, should have never come to pass…”

 

“What are you talking about?” Bruce questioned.

 

“There was a choice…between two lives,” Strange breathed, “Between the boy…and Stark.”

 

One could hear a pin drop. Tony’s face shifted, transformed, and he stepped forward without really thinking but Bruce was quick to stop him with a hand on his chest. Tony growled viciously, teeth snarling, “You said this was the _only_ way – but now you’re saying I could have been in the place of the kid? Are you fucking kidding me!?”

 

“You would have died,” Strange responded just as angry, “And the boy would have…he would have done something terribly stupid – though now I’m afraid he went through with it. And in doing so, he has destroyed an entire timeline – and entire branch at the hands of something sinister, something he had no _business_ playing with in the first place. It almost makes me angry at myself – of why any version of me would make that decision – ”

 

Tony interrupted, “What the hell are you talking about!?”

 

Strange whirled, pressing his finger to the figure on the screen, “I’m talking about that! That thing standing over the boy is a demon, Stark! One that he has sold his soul to in order to find a universe in which you exist! Now if my memory serves correctly from my time hopping, the boy had gone in with the intention to bring you back, but not even _she_ has the power to do that. So do you know what she has done?”

 

Tony swallowed and Strange went on…

 

“She sent him here. In doing so, she compromised the very stability of the universe in which he came from – _destroying_ it. Now not only can we not send him back – his soul belongs to her. And she’ll come looking.”

 

Tony felt like he was under water. His ears rushed and popped and he waited for his brain to make sense of what was being said to him, but it was hard. It was hard to even breathe at that point. He attempted to inhale, but it wouldn’t come and instead it croaked out, a question blooming, “How…how do you know?”

 

“She would have marked him,” Strange sighed, “Over his heart. He is as good as dead…all for nothing, an entire existence lost because he couldn’t let go.”

 

Tony didn’t wait for more. He turned and threw the door open, a rush of air hitting him in the face. He heard both Strange and Bruce call for him, footsteps running behind but he was sprinting down the halls, nearly knocking a nurse over as he made turn after turn to the kid’s room. His mind whirled with panic, something that said this couldn’t be true. Demons and shit, they didn’t exist, they weren’t real – but Peter was and he was alive and there was no other explanation and why would Strange lie?

 

He wondered and wondered, and there was no reason.

 

Antiseptic, bleach, it burned and he thought he should be used to the mind numbing smell by now. Having walked the halls for months, waiting for a miracle, and finally getting it, only to find out it’s all rubbish. They really didn’t save the kid at all, was that what that meant? Tony had seen films, movies, people signing souls away. Doctor Faustus being dragged to hell at the end of a story made to be a tale. Nothing real or genuine. Just lies.

 

Now it was happening. Now it was true.

 

Tony slid to a stop, pushing the door to the hospital room open. It was weighted, so it stopped before slamming into the wall behind it. First he saw Happy straight ahead, sitting in a chair. His head snapped up in surprise by the door flying open suddenly. Tony pushed forward into the room, further and further eyes wide and hands held in fists at his sides. Peter was sitting there, face confused and maybe a bit worried as Tony’s chest heaved up and down. The boy shifted, brows furrowing and Happy slowly stood from beside him, asking something, but Tony couldn’t hear past the water in his ears.

 

Suddenly, something like fear crossed Peter’s face.

 

And he knew.

 

Tony surged forward, silence overwhelming him, even though he knew he should have been able to hear things. Peter struggled with him, and Tony didn’t know – how rough – God he grabbed the kid like a fucking asshole would, someone violent, and he gripped the boy’s upper arms tightly as Peter cringed back from him, as if he wanted to escape. Peter was saying something, Happy was pulling at his shoulder, maybe trying to get him off the kid – but he couldn’t breathe because why would Peter do that? Did he want to die?

 

Was this even his Peter?

 

Finally the hearing returned, but all he could hear was himself –

 

“What did you do!? Kid what the fuck did you do!?”

 

He shook Peter, sharply, and Peter’s mouth was agape, gasping as if trying to find his voice to respond. Footsteps rushed in, and Happy shouted towards who Tony could only guess was Strange and Bruce, “What the hell is going on!?”

 

Tony released Peter’s arms, only to grab the hem of his pajama shirt and yank it upward. He expected to see something violent on the boy’s chest – a mark, something evil – but there was nothing. Nothing and Tony looked back at Strange who was watching with a sorrowful expression before he moved forward. He raised his hand, moving it towards the boy and Peter’s eyes had gone from frightened to desperate as he threw himself back into the pillow behind him, letting out a horrifying shriek.

 

“Stop! Stop!”

 

Strange’s thumb swiped. There was a brief glimmer over the skin, something like an electric fire – red and gold, blue underneath, sliding over the skin like fireworks revealing something invisible to the naked eye – but Strange had known it was there and so had Peter. Tony held his wrists, but Peter wasn’t really fighting, more so trying to get away from them back into the mattress behind him.

 

The mark glowed…Unwelcomed.

 

Ł

 

“ _God_ Peter,” Tony hissed, pulling the boy forward, shaking his arms again to grab the kid’s attention, his teeth gritted so tightly it burned, “What is that? What did you do, kid?”

 

Peter seemingly ignored him completely, tears punishing his face as he looked up at Strange and shouted, sounding shrill and his voice seeming hoarse as he did so, cracking, “I hate you! I hate you, why are you always here!? Why do you have to make everything so awful for me, what did I ever do to you!? You ruin everything!”

 

The kid inhaled after shouting, as if he hadn’t brought oxygen in for hours. He reached for the bedside table, grabbing the food tray before slinging it forward, empty plate and utensils flying towards both Strange and Bruce. Tony grabbed the kid’s wrists and snapped, “Hey! Hey, stop it!”

 

But Peter continued, “You’re always following me! Can’t you just leave me alone!?”

 

“We see where my leaving you alone got you in your world,” Strange ground out, and Peter’s mouth trembled, but the words silenced him into shock, eyes going wide and teary. Strange nodded slowly, knowing he had Peter’s attention, “Oh yes…I know very well what you did. I _know_ – I _saw_ your timeline. Which is precisely why I didn’t choose it. And maybe I must have realized what I had done wrong – consistently following you around and yet you still found a way to get the book, didn’t you? Because you’re so clever, and yet you couldn’t _let go_.”

 

Peter blinked rapidly, looking away from Strange, down at the floor.

 

Strange scoffed, looking at Tony, “Your cleverness in a child – a tragedy.”

 

Tony glared, before turning his attention back to Peter where he was still gripping his arms. He scooted closer to Peter, trying to use his body to hide both Strange and Bruce. Hoping for a moment, and Happy was silently standing there, saying nothing…Confused and horrified all at the same time. Tony let out a sharp breath, glancing back at everyone before turning to the kid. He got inches from his chest, moving his hands to grab Peter’s shoulder and the other hand to take the side of his face, trying to force him to meet his gaze in a way he often did with Morgan. Like a small child who had done something wrong – but Peter had done something…entirely and completely wrong…

 

Something awful.

 

“Look at me,” Tony murmured, swiping his thumb under Peter’s eye to get his attention. Peter finally looked at him, looking exhausted and defeated, his entire secret blown out of the water less than twenty-four hours after waking in the hospital. Peter’s chest stuttered when he met Tony’s eyes, and Tony continued, “Shhhh, just…you gotta answer me. You gotta tell me what you did – what happened?”

 

Peter looked a lot younger like that, like a small child sharing a secret. Peter’s eyes flitted to the other men in the room and Tony ordered again, “No, look at _me_.”

 

The boy’s throat bobbed and finally his mouth moved.

 

“I had to do it,” He breathed, “I – I _had_ to. You died.”

 

Tony shut his eyes, fear smacking him in the face. Maybe a part of him had hoped Strange was wrong. When he opened them again, Peter looked sorry, “You – put on the gauntlet and then…and then you were just gone. I had to bring you back – I had to do something…And the book said she granted wishes, I was just gonna make a wish a-and then she…she said she couldn’t bring the dead back, so she sent me here.”

 

“Naïve,” Strange growled behind him, “They’re not wishes. It’s bargaining. One soul for another, you _sold_ yourself.”

 

Peter argued, voice cracking, “I couldn’t do it!”

 

“I know you couldn’t,” Strange answered, and Tony wanted to tell him to shut up until he went on fiercely, “That entire timeline…it was a mess – of mourning, of you pushing yourself, making an attempt on your own life – all of it…heinous suffering. Which is why I didn’t choose it. At least…at least this timeline had hope.”

 

Tony’s eyes widened, “An…an attempt…”

 

Peter made a face, one of utter betrayal as he looked over Tony’s shoulder at Strange. Tony too looked at the doctor, as if searching for confirmation he had heard correctly. When he turned back to Peter, the boy had seemingly shut down. His face had gone completely red, anger and embarrassment falling forward. Peter hissed, “He’s lying.”

 

Strange said nothing…maybe finding the error in his exposure. Tony took Peter by the back of his neck and the kid was shaking his head, and he insisted, though there wasn’t any force behind it, as his exterior crumbled up – and Tony understood. He had once felt so terribly exposed and out in the open and it wasn’t fair. Peter nearly whimpered, repeating, “He’s _lying_.”

 

“Okay,” Was all Tony said, pulling Peter to his shoulder as the boy let out a shuddered exhale, “Okay, okay, okay.”

 

…

 

Peter pretended to sleep.

 

It was easier than actually doing it.

 

_“We’re going to have to tell his aunt something.”_

_“What, that her nephew sold his soul and has a demon after him? That it’s not even the kid she raised, but some other version?”_

 

Tony’s voice was fierce, _“It’s still Peter. And if what you said about destroying the timeline is true, he’s **ours** now.”_

 

_“Sure you’re not just saying that because you’re desperate?”_

_“Strange…I’ll knock your front teeth out.”_

Aunt May, Aunt May, Aunt May. Telling Aunt May was one of the worst things they could do. Peter’s eyes fluttered open, their voices filtering in from the hallway. He pushed himself up into a sitting position, hands going for the device on the wrist, monitoring him – keeping an alarm like a newborn infant. He plucked it off, dropping it onto the mattress as he shifted his eyes to the window, out into the glow of the city.

 

Maybe Spider-Man could fly again…In this universe at least.

 

_Run_.


	9. The Seven Seas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Dude – “
> 
> “No talking,” Peter scolded.
> 
> “But you just did!” Ned scream-whispered.
> 
> “Ned, no talking.”

_One night is had become a lot and Tony had sat on the edge of Peter’s hospital bed._

_A part of him longed to see the kid’s eyes flutter open and smile and another part of him longed to shake him forcefully, aggressively – anger. To ask why he would put that damned gauntlet on his hand. Why he would snap his fingers. Why he would think it was a good idea at all to do such a thing. The dark reality was Tony already knew the answer – because he would have done the exact same thing. It made a punishment problematic – and also because the chances of Peter ever waking up again were becoming slimmer with each passing day._

_Tony had decided a piece of him was bound to that hospital bed dying. Like how Peter had perished in his arms – had turned to ash and Tony had gotten him back just for a little while and most of that time was spent fighting for their lives. Peter’s nose was purple, his eyes blackened. His skin was healing, slowly from being fried, but healing nonetheless. And yet **and yet** his organs, his brain, his insides were all squashed within that flash of emptiness and nothingness._

_Gone forever – it felt like._

_Tony was so fucking tired of mourning._

_First the kid, then Clint, others lost in their attempt to save everything, and then the kid again. The joy of getting him back and losing him again – God it was like whiplash. Tony had felt ready to take on the entire universe after looking into that boy’s eyes and now it was nothing more than an unconscious teenager hooked to machines in a bed. Tony reached out, flattening his palm over Peter’s chest – feeling it rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and fall and rise and –_

_He pushed his back against the head of the bed, just enough room to squeeze before turning onto his side. It was an odd display of affection but a lot had changed in the past five years and he had found out that being affectionate was not a symbol of weakness like Howard would have led him to believe. ‘Anything for that kid’. Tony wondered what that was…because it seemed to go against his entire childhood – his entire existence._

_“Peter.”_

_Tony whispered it. Not something to get his attention – just to say the name as he stared at the side of Peter’s purple colored face._

_“If you wake up…I promise I’ll do better. I’ll be better. But you gotta wake up.”_

_He reached up, taking Peter’s skull carefully before pressing his forehead to the side of the teen’s head._

_“Just wake up.”_

Peter had woken up.

 

“It’s not your Peter.”

 

Strange’s voice sounded muffled in that little conference room they had found unlocked down the hallway. Tony supposed it was for doctors to consult with patients’ families, but Tony practically had the entire floor ‘rented’ out for Peter from day one. They went where they pleased, and Tony had his elbows on the table, fingers pressed lightly to his lips as if the emotion was too great to let words slip past his mouth. Tony’s eyes flickered to Strange’s hard ones, unrelenting, not softening in the slightest despite the agony tearing through the floor of the hospital because they were all confused – maybe hurt, but the lie. Scratch that: Completely and undeniably injured.

 

Tony lowered his hands, sitting straight in the chair as he settled his eyes and made his mouth firm and unfaltering before he spoke hard, “He is now. You said it yourself, his universe is gone and the Peter that was here before wasn’t going to wake up at all – something you failed to disclose to us, by the way. Which means…this is our Peter now. It’s not like we have anywhere to send him back to anyway.”

 

“Wait, wait, I need to understand this,” Bruce held up a hand from where he was standing a bit further from the doctor and engineer, “Why exactly can’t we send him back? What happened, how did him being removed destroy his timeline?”

 

Strange breathed deeply, as if frustrated – like this was a question that had been asked over a thousand time, or at least thirty. Strange moved away briefly, running a hand through his hair as he started. He sounded a lot calmer than he looked when it left his lips, “The universe is, well often times we consider it infinite, but it’s really not. It’s like Earth, you never reach the edge. You keep going and going and going – in a way we are unable to comprehend. So we summarize it into this theory of being unending, when it’s really finite.”

 

He paused, then went on, “Look at it this way…The Titanic struck an iceberg April 14, 1912, approximately twenty minutes before midnight. But if you move further into the alternative, the Titanic makes it safely to New York – and even further the Titanic was never built. This is all upon a string of alternatives – or realities. You pick one, the other never happened and while we’ve been existing here, and Peter supposedly has been existing elsewhere, that’s how we assume it to be. But there’s no reaching across these realities – they either happen or they don’t. Which means Peter’s reality hasn’t technically been ‘destroyed’ it has simply ceased to exist.”

 

Tony ran his hands through his hair, “Then how does he have an entire life with memories and so do we?”

 

“Like I said, there’s a string,” Strange said, “And his has ceased…think of it as…you can’t go back once you’ve gone forward.”

 

Tony still didn’t understand completely. But he had never been very interested in the theories of the multi-verse…different realities, he had always been preoccupied with different planets. The fear of that. Tony cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders, sitting back in the chair, giving both men a solid look even though inside he was trembling with terror, “Well…that settles it then – he stays here and we take care of him. Starting with that thing on his chest.”

 

Tony jumped when the door to the conference room opened. May appeared, walking in followed closely by Happy who had been sent to retrieve her once she arrived at the hospital. She had a look of concern on her face, holding her purse close to her as she took in the men in the room. Tony wanted to bang his head against the table, the thought of having to explain everything to May right then and there making him near the edge of vomiting. Tony gripped the armrests, silence falling over them. Strange looked at her and Bruce looked at the ground as if sharing Tony’s fear.

 

Happy paused in the doorway, “I’m gonna go uh…check on the kid.”

 

Tony could have rolled his eyes at the cowardice, but Happy was gone before he could say anything, shutting the door behind him. May cleared her throat, almost awkwardly as she entered further. She looked like she was waiting for someone to say something – to start explaining why they were convening in the first place. The poor woman had been through so much the past several months. Coming back after the dusting – trying to rebuild her life and career, trying to get past the fact that her kid was in a coma for three months. Then she had him back and Tony was about to have to inform her that the kid in there…even if he was Peter to Tony he really wasn’t theirs. But he was now.

 

He had a feeling she would think the same as him, but he was afraid anyway as he said, “May can you…can you sit?”

 

May hesitated…

 

“What’s happening? Why did Happy grab me as soon as I came in?”

 

Strange stepped forward this time. The old habit of bedside manner bloomed, and he took her elbow gently, gesturing to one of the seats, “There are a few things we need to cover with you, being Peter’s guardian. We recently came to the conclusion about a few things while you were gone and we would like to…discuss them.”

 

May set her purse on the table and took a seat, but she looked like she wished she could stand. Maybe some kind of defense mechanism, the ability to run to Peter if need-be. Tony pressed his fingers to his lips again, mourning over and over again, but now it was trying to keep this kid out of hot water for selling his soul to a demon – demons – God Tony thought he had seen the last of the bullshit with aliens, with space, but he was wrong. Painfully wrong. He was sorry, and he just wanted to make things easy for the Parkers. To help them, to give them what they needed. Everything – the entire fucking universe if he could – but he couldn’t. Sometimes it seemed he plagued them more than anything. Harmed them more than assisted.

 

Tony was a blight.

 

“May…I suppose we’ve covered the fact that Peter waking up was a bit of a – well a lot of a…medical anomaly,” Tony started, maybe finally finding courage, or just stupidity for letting the words leave his mouth without thinking about them harder. May nodded in agreement, and Tony went on, “Well…today we found out something. Something not – not so good – “

 

Tony was cut off when the door to the conference room swung open. Happy appeared, red-faced and blotchy, breathing heavily with a certain kind of panic that could not be acted out. Tony stood from his chair almost immediately and May did the same, everyone falling into a shocked silence as Happy tried to catch his breath. He pointed out into the hallway and Tony shouted, Happy taking too long to speak –

 

“Spit it out, Hogan!”

 

“The window!” Was all Happy could produce.

 

Tony was around the table in an instant and each of them were filing out of the room in a sprint, Happy leading the way with Tony beside him. The room was literally just down the hall – just a few feet and what could happen in those few feet? They had assumed very little, which was why it felt safe to leave Peter alone, he had been sleeping anyway – had seemingly passed out with exhaustion. But when Tony burst through the door, much like Happy had done and flew into the room his mouth hung open, trying to piece together what he was seeing.

 

Bed sheets pushed back.

 

Couch moved.

 

Window open.

 

And Peter…

 

Gone.

 

…

 

Peter had climbed in through the ceiling of the thrift store.

 

It smelled like some kind of memory that he had as a child playing marbles outside of Charlie’s Shoe Shiner. Which sounded incredibly old, something from the 1950s, but it was true. The neighborhood kids would get all competitive about marbles to a degree that sometimes Peter would watch fist fights break out. That was why he and Ned went to most of the games anyway, with the hopes Reece Baker and Lance Smith would start punching and biting each other again. It was only until the owner of the store – not even named Charlie, because that had been his father – had started chasing them off with a broom in his hand.

 

Peter had gotten snagged one day because cops had been called and he still had asthma then, so he couldn’t run very fast. Uncle Ben had picked him up from the station – had laughed – and told Peter he never imagined Peter being the convict of the family.

 

He blinked, slipping on one of the coats from the coat hanger. Peter figured – maybe since everything cost a dollar it wouldn’t be as much of a crime to take something? Just to get out of his pajamas. The pants were a little big, but other than that, the sneakers fit perfectly, and the t-shirt was fine. Peter glanced at himself in the mirror and was satisfied – feeling he looked like an average everyday citizen of New York and not some teenager who had just escaped a hospital room and bed and everything that was the makings of a horror movie.

 

There was something he didn’t think about:

 

The alarm system.

 

It seemed dumb in retrospect – but he had forgotten he wasn’t even a customer and the door was literally closed – the lights were barely lit. He had turned the lock – had pushed the door open and the alarm went blaring, sending him into a frantic sprint down the street. Being the middle of the night – he was welcomed with very few onlookers, but holy shit was it scary. The last thing he needed was to be arrested two minutes into his run from the people at the hospital. The people he should not have been afraid of but he was – wholly, because he was not their Peter and he should have been. He should have been.

 

Peter ducked into an alleyway, leaning his head back against the brick wall. It snapped a bit, but he sunk to a squatted position, placing his elbows on his knees as he ran a hand through his sweaty hair. Maybe the jacket had been a bad idea. It wasn’t even cold – it was summer. Even in this state of mind he had thought ‘let’s complete this outfit’ holy…

 

Sometimes Peter hated himself over the little things.

 

Slowly, he leaned and peered, not seeing anyone or police cars – just a few straggling pedestrians. Some stumbling around after a night out. Peter slid back up the wall and sighed deeply, nearly jumping out of his skin when a voice next to him spoke out, “You alright, kid?”

 

“Oh God – “ Peter flinched, grabbing his chest. There was a man there, sitting on what appeared to be a makeshift bed. Peter swallowed thickly, then nodded his head up and down in response. Unfortunately, a sad fact, the homeless in New York were ever apparent, no matter how much the well-off tried to ignore their presence. Peter answered in a whisper, “Yeah…yeah, I’m fine.”

 

The man hummed, “You don’t look so fine.”

 

Peter grimaced. Maybe he didn’t. He had been in a hospital bed for three months, had woken up from a coma. Had run for his life because there was no telling what they were going to do to him now that they knew. They knew so much – they knew about his reality, they knew about Lilith, and they knew he had tried to end his own life and they would surely tell May and she would hate him and everything would implode and collapse onto itself. He nearly vomited at the thought, but held it down and slowly started to slip the jacket it off, before handing it over.

 

The man took it, didn’t say anything more, just nodded his head at the gesture.

 

Peter left the alleyway.

 

He didn’t exactly know where he was going until he was already headed there. The thought of Ned Leeds crossed his mind for a brief moment and then it came: Ned might be the only person he could trust. Always, he could trust Ned. Peter was finding it difficult to put one foot in front of the other though. As if there was some form of hesitance to go to anyway, but he needed someone…because he couldn’t do this – where was he going to go? And Ned was only a few blocks away from where he was, it seemed like a good idea.

 

Take the fire escape.

 

And also, he had to make sure he didn’t accidentally knock on Ned’s parents’ window because that would be awkward. To see the kid who has been in a coma for three months outside their window, but he also imagined Ned was going to be relatively shocked to see him as well. Peter climbed his way up in the honking echo of the city, before sticking his hands to the brick and crawling across to the window framed with a Star Wars curtain on the inside. The same curtain that had been there since they were six-years-old and Ned’s claim as to why he could never bring a potential partner into his room. Peter tapped his finger – one – two – three – then ten times because it took forever, and he figured it was probably because Ned was sleeping and maybe he shouldn’t have come but –

 

The curtain ripped back.

 

Eye contact.

 

A few seconds passed. Then a few more, and Ned’s confused expression quickly morphed into shock and then complete awe. Peter was…well, he was relieved to see a smile beginning to form as Ned scrambled to open the window. It slid silently, a screech at the very end and Ned exclaimed, leading Peter to believe – or hope his parents weren’t home. Ned gasped out excitedly, “Holy shit!”

 

Peter pressed his finger to his lips, shushing as he started to climb in. Ned jumped back allowing him space to get over the heater, and Peter entered the room. Just as he closed the window and was turning back around, he was enveloped in the tightest hug Peter had ever been in luck of receiving. At first he was surprised, but it quickly melted into something else. God, Peter had missed Ned, back in his own universe – when he was practically isolated at the Compound. Ned still had school, Ned couldn’t come visit all the time – he had a life. Peter had felt so lonely surrounded by adults it had become this weird, irrational existence of thinking maybe Ned didn’t _want_ to see him. Which he knew deep down was completely untrue.

 

When Ned pulled away, he gripped Peter’s forearms.

 

“Wha – holy shit! Peter, you’re awake, you’re – “

 

He started to babble, and it was endless. Peter had to reach up and grip his shoulders to stop him. Because Peter was on edge, the questions being thrown his way were making him inch towards a precipice and he had to step back for a moment. Peter ordered, “Ned, Ned, Ned, listen to me…listen, we got a situation…”

 

“A situation,” Ned repeated, brows furrowing, “Dude! You’ve been in a coma for three months, and you – you snapped your fingers – dude that’s amazing! You saved all of us – you…But a situation? Already?”

 

Already. Yeah…shit followed Peter wherever he went he supposed.

 

Peter inhaled deeply, trying to calm his racing heart, “Yes Ned…Already. A…And there’s some stuff you don’t understand. Some stuff that…happened and I need you to sit down because it’s going to be a long story and you gotta listen really closely and I hope you – I hope you don’t hate me because…”

 

Ned shook his head, “Pete, I’d never hate you.”

 

His friend didn’t move to sit down and Peter took that as a sign he would rather stand. Peter continued to grip Ned’s shoulders, pleading with his eyes, hoping he would listen. Peter whispered quietly, “I ran away…from the hospital. From Mister Stark and Aunt May and everyone.”

 

“You – you ran away?” Ned questioned, “Why? They’re probably – you know they’re gonna be psyched that you’re awake! You almost died. You saved everyone.”

 

Peter chewed the inside of his mouth.

 

His stomach twisted.

 

“That wasn’t me, Ned.”

 

Ned looked like he wanted to laugh at first, like Peter was trying to make a joke. But it soon morphed into a deeply engrained confusion, pressing itself into his eyebrows and mouth, frowning and dipping. Ned tilted his head to the side, trying to decipher what such an utterance meant, but his voice didn’t sound any closer to understanding, “What do you mean…it wasn’t you? Of course it was you – Peter, the news has been talking about Spider-Man for weeks now, everyone knows he did what he did –“

 

“Ned,” Peter said, “You’ve heard of the…The Multiverse Theory, right?”

 

Ned nodded.

 

“Well I’m…I’m not from here…if you know what I mean.”

 

That seemed to click within his friend. Ned’s jaw went open, his eyes widened. Ned blinked rapidly, over and over again and he nearly exclaimed, “You’re from another universe!?”

 

Peter shushed him again, not knowing if Ned’s parents were somewhere in the apartment. He stepped closer and continued, explaining a bit more in detail since the initial band-aid had been removed, “Yes, okay? Yes…I’m from…another place. A place where Mister Stark snapped his fingers, but since he’s not like me he _died_. So I…so I did something really stupid to try to bring him back to life in my world, and it ended up with me here and my timeline…destroyed.”

 

Then the hard question came…

 

“What did you do?”

 

Peter gulped.

 

“I kinda…sold my soul to a demon.”

 

Ned jumped back, horror arriving to replace the confusion and the shock – and Ned almost screamed, his voice cracking and Peter flinched, “You what!?"

 

“I had to,” Peter argued almost defensively, “Mister Stark was…he was dead, Ned. I had to find a way to bring him back and Doctor Strange had this book and…”

 

Peter paused, thinking, as if something like an idea had just struck him like a brick to the forehead. Peter tilted his head downward, as a string of curses and questions were hurled at him while Ned gave him a well-deserved scolding. Peter blanked out for a moment though as the idea twisted and it turned and he finally looked at Ned again, holding up his hands, trying to silence him with, “Hold on! Hold on! Just…I just thought of something I – “

 

“No, no!” Ned waved his finger, “You don’t get to come up with anymore idea, you sold your soul to a demon, man…What are we, in some kind of horror movie that ends with you being dragged off by an army of devils?!”

 

Peter shook his head, “I dunno how it works, but listen! We need to – we need to go get the book, we need to go to the Sanctum – Doctor Strange’s house – whatever, and we need to get it so I can…Maybe I can talk to her, and figure something out.”

 

“You can’t negotiate with a demon, Peter!”

 

“Maybe I can!” Peter exclaimed, “Please Ned, c’mon help me. I gotta get this…I gotta get this squared away…Mister Stark and others are…They’re gonna tell Aunt May and…”

 

_No one is going to forgive me. Not with this stupid mark on my chest._

Ned looked like he didn’t want to. Like he really, really didn’t want to. Peter bit his lip and hoped for the best and hoped and hoped and hoped. It was the most he had mustered in quite a long time out of himself and finally – a response came and it seemed a bit forced, but Peter appreciated the effort, as guilt flooded him. He was always asking too much of Ned.

 

“Fine but…if you do anything stupid, we’re putting a stop to this.”

 

Peter was pretty sure trying to rob Doctor Strange was already pretty stupid.

 

…

 

They couldn’t contact the police.

 

That had become pretty clear early on in the situation – as it unfolded right before their very eyes. The window, the kid being gone, all of it. Telling May had finally left his lips and she was less than understanding about the fact that her nephew was not who they thought he was and that he had been marked by a demon. But finding the kid was the priority, after all – finding him and getting things figured out and somehow moving past what was going on – getting rid of the demon. Coming to terms with where they were and what they were doing.

 

The fact that Peter was…Well, this was a new Peter, but he was theirs now.

 

Not involving authorities limited their efforts, which led to Tony being in that parking lot in the middle of the night. The hospital parking lot – and digging his hands deep in his pockets with his shoulders slumped waiting for a last resort. They could only spread themselves so far, and if they were going to search an entire city for a panicked sixteen-year-old with enhanced abilities, they were going to need others trained in such…areas.

 

The problem was, they had started moving on – and a lot of that effort was Tony avoiding moving on with them.

 

They – Natasha and Steve arrived about an hour after he called. They came into the parking lot, screeching tires, skidding to a stop and the wet concrete welcoming them, the ground sweating from a slight humidity. He tried to ignore the fact that he was nervous. Things weren’t bad anymore between them, it wasn’t like before, after Germany. It wasn’t like coming back from space and finally saying everything he had wanted to say because they were supposed to be together, when the threat came. They were supposed to all fight together and then they didn’t and they had initially lost and –

 

Things were better.

 

They were trying harder.

 

It was just – Tony had to take a step back. Retirement, family, the kid – trying to keep Peter alive and heal him after his self-sacrificial bullshit. And now Tony knew there had been an alternative where he could have taken Peter’s place. But there was the thought that Peter would have tried to end his own life anyway – and then ended up where they were once more. An entire timeline destroyed. Telling Steve and Natasha over the phone what had happened, and swallowing his pride to ask for help…well, it was relatively easy considering all things. They hadn’t gotten to know the kid well enough for a shock to run through them like ice, Peter had been comatose after returning. Steve still called Peter Queens, because that was the name that had been attached. Natasha didn’t call him anything.

 

The both of them moved, stepping from the vehicle out into the open. There wasn’t an initial word of greeting, not until Tony stepped forward and questioned, “She still driving smooth?” In reference to the car – one Tony had purchased as a sort of ‘welcome home’ gift. Maybe even a bit of an ‘I’m sorry’ even if he wasn’t sure what he was sorry about. Maybe their disagreement, their inability to communicate. Whatever, but he wanted to apologize for it over and over again. They had spent so much time being lonely.

 

“A lot better than my old one, trust me.”

 

The inconspicuous car. Right. More like a pile of junk.

 

Tony looked at Natasha. Her seriousness, but the tiniest upturn of her lip. Things had been different for her – and he couldn’t blame her. They had set up a fund for Clint’s family, they were taken care of, Nat visited so much that her time was split between rebuilding the Avengers and checking on her makeshift family on the farm. They were all healing – but they knew no one missed Clint more than her and obviously Clint’s loved ones. Dying a hero meant very little to those left behind, it was still dying.

 

There had been luck for them, but luck eventually ran out. It always did for people. Natasha channeled her energy into other things now, the Avengers, Clint’s family, building a home for girls in need of a place to go – and Tony supposed she knew better than anyone what that kind of life was like. Not feeling like one belonged anywhere. They had grown – all of them in the past several months. More civil, more familial than they had been ever since Germany, even with Tony’s kept space.

 

Tony breathed, took Cap’s hand that was offered to shake. The words came out quieter than he had intended, because he didn’t want to sound afraid, but he was. There was a simple, “Thank you for…you know coming.”

 

“Always,” Cap said. There had been a silent agreement – always come when the other calls now. After the universe had suffered because they weren’t together – they were split up across the world…It was clear they were better as a unit, not as a separate entity. He pulled away and looked at Nat.

 

Tony continued, “And thank you – I know you’re a busy woman now.”

 

“I make time for you, Stark,” She spoke, the sarcasm in good humor before business replaced it and she glanced towards the hospital, “So…we got any direction on this? I mean a phone call…some stuff about the kid being awake and possessed by a demon from an alternate universe – “

 

“He’s not possessed,” Tony corrected, looking almost disgusted by the thought of it, “He’s just…well, he sold his soul and here we are. Then he ran off after we found out that not only did he do that – but like you said…he’s from some alternate reality. A reality where I wielded the gauntlet and _died_ and he was trying to…I dunno, revive me or some shit.”

 

Their faces blanched. It seemed the thought was something that hadn’t really crossed their minds. It was hard to think like that – to think of all the alternatives that could have fallen into their laps without realizing it. Never to consider the other ways – the other directions and the downfalls and where to go from there. When the silence clung too long, Tony continued, “I don’t want to involve the police, just in case the kid gets spooked so we’re working without a wide hand. But I figured the more eyes the better, and if the kid really is scared and tries to use his enhancements, we’re all trained for that at least. Rather than police who might shoot first if some kid with super strength tries to grab them.”

 

Before either of them could respond, Bruce’s voice called, “Tony!”

 

They turned and Bruce crossed the street, jogging towards where they were standing in the parking lot. He seemed to be breathing heavily, as if he had run out of the hospital. He looked at the group, giving an awkward nod before turning to Tony and trying to catch his breath before he started to speak at a rapid rate. Tony waved a hand, ordering, “C’mon Banner.”

 

“Sorry, sorry just…I haven’t worked out in a while,” He explained, before going on, “The kid we – a thrift store alarm went off in Queens…Apparently they found a hospital bracelet with Peter’s name and information on it, which prompted them to call the hospital. Strange intercepted the call…told them the kid was a psych patient so maybe they’ll approach with a bit more caution if they run into him but…We’re tracking his movements on CCTV now, since we have a point to start.”

 

Tony should have figured his attempt to keep authorities out of it wouldn’t work. Tony glanced down at his wrist watch and then back at Natasha and Steve. He cleared his throat and shrugged, “Always did work better under a time crunch.”

 

…

 

“I don’t wanna do this.”

 

“Then stay out here and keep watch.”

 

“No way! I’m not being the sidekick!”

 

Peter turned to look at Ned where he was standing outside the front door of the Sanctum. The problem was, he had never snuck in before and even though he didn’t think there were any alarms – if Wong was home it was going to present a challenge. This wasn’t a universe where Peter and Strange had regular contact, where to Wong Peter was some kid Strange had somehow gotten invested in. They hardly knew each other past Titan. Peter’s hands trembled, but he ignored it in favor of trying to be brave so that Ned wouldn’t have to be. Peter warned, “Then you gotta be quiet, because we’re about to go inside, and when we do – no talking. That’s how super-secret spy missions go.”

 

Super-secret spy mission.

 

Peter wished he had his suit.

 

To his surprise, the door was unlocked. He figured…well, Wong and Strange probably weren’t too concerned about intruders that would come in off the streets. They were probably more concerned about magical beings that could just poof themselves inside. The hinges creaked, and Peter paused, cringing inwardly before he hurried and pushed it the rest of the way open, stepping aside to allow Ned in. Ned slid along the wall and Peter’s brows furrowed as he hissed quietly, “What’re you doing?”

 

“Being sneaky.”

 

“No that’s not - ” Peter cut himself off, pinching the bridge of his nose before shutting the door back behind them. The stairs leading up towards Strange’s study laid in front of them and Peter tugged at Ned’s arm to get him away from where he had plastered himself as flat as he could against the wall. The two of them moved towards them, and Peter tested the first step, the second, then the third, before squatting down and beginning to climb through the silent building. There seemed to be no apparent life – which if Strange was at the hospital and Wong happened to be elsewhere it would make sense.

 

“Dude – “

 

“No talking,” Peter scolded.

 

“But you just did!” Ned scream-whispered.

 

“Ned, no talking.”

 

“Ugh…”

 

He felt Ned take hold of his beltloop and the two scaled the steps together before making it up onto the landing at the end of the hallway. Peter moved to flatten himself on the wall this time and he could practically hear Ned inwardly screaming because he had only just gotten in trouble for doing it a minute ago. Every time the sound of a floorboard squeaking would filter through Peter would have to fight the urge to push Ned out of the building and tell him to make a run for it because it they got caught – there was no telling what was going to happen to them.

 

Ultimately though, they made it to the study with little to no issue. Finding the book was even easier – because apparently in this world it was in the exact same place. Peter took it into his hands, and it was as heavy as ever as if it carried all the secrets in the world – but when Ned looked at the front of it, his eyes widened to an unnatural size and he whispered, sounding distressed, “ _Demonic literature, bargaining_? Even with that on the cover you thought it was a good idea? Pete, we gotta talk about your self-preservation skills – “

 

“Listen, it was one of my only options,” Peter rolled his eyes, “You’re not the only one who has told me it was stupid. Which is how we ended up in the situation in the first place – but…”

 

Peter trailed off. He didn’t know what kind of excuse he could come up with. Other than – he couldn’t let go. Because he couldn’t. He hadn’t been capable of it like everyone else seemingly had been. Which made absolutely no sense. He still wondered how he had gotten so sick inside of himself. He didn’t regret the decision. Because now he knew – he knew he never would have been able to let it go. Not like the others.

 

Instead he pulled the book close to his chest and casted an empty look towards Ned. One that said he didn’t know what to say. They stepped back out into the hall, glancing both ways before they moved again. In retrospect, it was too easy. They had been dumb to believe they could get out of it completely free, and it hadn’t worked the way they had intended. First it was making it to the top of the stairs, and Peter had an optimistic thought for the first time in forever – and like life tended to do to him: it knocked him on his ass as a result.

 

To be specific, the cloak came out of nowhere…and pushed him down the stairs.

 

Peter tumbled, and grunted until he slid to a stop at the bottom. When he rolled over, he was being attacked by the same cloak he had seen all those weeks ago – Cloakie, as he had named him and Peter almost called out, but then he shoved at the cloak, trying to get Cloakie out of his face and he gasped, “Wait – wait – what are you doing!?”

 

Then…

 

“Oh crap! You don’t know me here!”

 

Well he probably knew him, but not to the same degree. Peter struggled and glanced up the stairs, only to see Ned standing with his hands over his mouth. From behind him, another figure appeared and Peter opened his own mouth to shout at him in warning, but nothing escaped. Not in time anyway, because Wong appeared out of nowhere, and grabbed Ned’s shoulder and –

 

To Peter’s shock, Ned turned, grabbed Wong’s arm and then shoved him down the steps – similar to how Peter had tumbled down.

 

Wong came hurdling and Cloakie still refused to release him. Ned ran down and Peter noticed Wong wasn’t moving and for some reason he immediately thought of that stupid old video – _oh my fucking God he’s fucking dead_ – Peter pushed his feet away from Wong’s unconscious form, and Ned took a hold of Cloakie once he made it to the bottom of the steps. He tugged hard and finally Peter was freed of the flapping in his face and the fabric trying to take a hold of him. Peter rolled over and grabbed the book as Ned held the cloak. The boy looked back at Ned who shoved the cloak away and both broke out into a sprint towards the door, despite being chased. Peter yanked it open – casting one last look at Wong in a silent apology before slamming the door, catching the cloak in it halfway out.

 

“Holy shit!” Ned shouted, and clearly he had the same thought, “Did I just kill him!?”

 

Peter gasped, holding the book and leaning forward – out of breath, “No…no surely he’s…surely he’s tougher than that, right?”

 

“PETER!”

 

The voice came out of nowhere, down the street on the corner. Peter and Ned both whipped their heads in that direction, chests heaving up and down. Peter’s eyes widened, in the night lights, illuminated by the street lamps – was Mister Stark…And unfortunately standing beside him was Black Widow…All decked out in her gear. Peter’s mouth gaped open and he immediately felt his stomach drop with terror at the sight of her because God – Oh shit –

 

“What the hell?” Ned questioned, “Is Mister Stark going to assassinate you?”

 

Peter shook his head, and replied weakly, “I dunno, but it’s starting to feel like a possibility.”

 

His arms tightened on the book and Ned grabbed his arm, giving him a slight shove in the opposite direction. Ned pointed down the street and ordered, “Go! Go, dude, I’ll – I’ll hold them off.”

 

“Hold them off!?” Peter screeched, “It’s Black Widow and Iron Man, Ned!”

 

Ned heaved a deep breath of frustration and pushed Peter harder to run, “Go!”

 

Peter swallowed, but turned nonetheless, tucking the book beneath his arm before he broke into a sprint down the street. He knew deep down they weren’t going to hurt Ned, but his stomach twisted with the thought that he was abandoning his best friend. But Peter was the one they wanted, after all, and the book, now that they realized what he was doing. So Peter ran, and hoped his feet would continue to carry him despite the fact that he was both physically and mentally exhausted. His limbs screamed in pain, Cloakie was stuck in the door, Ned had pushed Wong down the stairs. They had really made a fluster cluck of everything. Peter rounded one of the corners, ducking into an alley similar to the one he had gone into earlier after stealing the clothes and Peter realized this was the second time in one night he had done something completely and totally illegal.

 

He wondered if there were laws against stealing books on summoning demons.

 

Peter’s shoes stepped in a puddle as he moved towards a fire escape. However, the moment he reached up to grab onto it, a hand wrapped tightly around his upper arm and pulled him back. Peter yanked away, slipping and bumping into the brick, his back making a hollow thud as he scurried away from whoever had touched him and interrupted his escape.

 

He blinked.

 

“Captain…” Peter croaked.

 

Steve Rogers was there, his hands raised in a passive manner as if it would calm Peter’s fear. Peter held the book tighter, ignoring the unfriendly smells, the sound of his heart racing, the blood pooling behind his eyes into a migraine. Peter inhaled and exhaled as he waited for some kind of confirmation – but sure enough, it was the Captain America. Black Widow, Cap…God who else? Was Ant-Man going to make an appearance, shrink him down, and then stomp on him?

 

“Hey Queens,” Steve greeted gently, “Remember me?”

 

Peter nodded – of course. He had just called him Captain after all. Steve went on, trying to step forward, “Good…then you know I’m not here to hurt you. Tony called, he was really worried about you and we just want to get you somewhere safe and right now this isn’t the place to be. So I need you to hand me that book…and come with us.”

 

Peter’s eyes darted to the opposite end of the alley.

 

Escape.

 

He offered nothing else verbally. Peter ran towards where he wanted to be. Steve grabbed a hold of him and Peter stumbled backward, plummeting down as the force was released and the book went flying from his grip. Peter hit the ground – a sharp _thwack_ slamming into the back of his head as he hit the corner of a metal dumpster. Peter’s skull rung, and he saw stars, staring up at a sky he knew was too light polluted to produce any. Then the dots and bubbles and Peter coughed.

 

“Christ Cap, I said stop the kid, not concuss him!”

 

Peter blinked hard, looking up to hear footsteps running towards them. He felt dazed and like his limbs had suddenly become heavy from the blow. It was Tony there, running directly past Cap and sliding into a kneeling position beside Peter. Peter’s eyes flitted between the men, nausea crept in as hands touched his shoulders and he looked into Mister Stark’s eyes – but they weren’t alive – they were dead, and empty, and half of his face was burned and…

 

_“We won.”_

_“We won.”_

Peter let out a sound that was akin to choking. Mister Stark’s fingers slid over the back of his head and over a blooming bump. Mister Stark asked, “Hey…Peter…You hear me?”

 

_“You’re dead, you’re dead, you’re dead.”_

Doctor Strange, holding the book – cloakless, and looming and Peter was sorry he had shut Cloakie in the door but he had to –

 

Natasha Romanoff, dragging Ned down the alley by the back of his shirt and words were leaving Peter’s mouth, almost slurred and he couldn’t think – not past the throbbing in his head and the look on Mister Stark’s face while he was dying – and Peter kept apologizing, “I’m sorry, I’m – I was going to summon Lilith to negotiate – “

 

“There _is_ no negotiating with a demon, Peter,” Doctor Strange interrupted and Peter wished someone would just let him finish a sentence for fucking once.

 

Mister Stark waved a hand – but Peter didn’t understand how he was doing that if he was dying, if the radiation was in his skin, his bones, his hair and his eyes. Peter nearly vomited again, he was so nauseous, and his head hurt as Mister Stark spoke, “Stop, stop, okay? We’ll speak to ‘her’ _personally_ , but first we need to get the kid somewhere safe and – Peter, you hear that? We’ll get you somewhere safe and we’ll go over our options.”

 

Peter wanted to respond.

 

He really did.

 

But his eyes flitted to another person coming from the end of the alleyway. But standing there – in the darkness, a figure, a shadow and faceless – Peter didn’t know what it was. He had an inkling in the back of his mind, screaming and telling him this was the person who had done this but he didn’t know how he knew. Maybe it was his senses trying to preserve his life, shouting at him to run again, like in the hospital.

 

Lilith.

 

It had to be.

 

A flash, a gauntlet, slipping it over his hand and then snapping his fingers. The world within him burning to a crisp, his body falling and Peter fell backward. In the alleyway, and hands were trying to touch him.

 

Peter hit the concrete and seized.


	10. My Bonnie Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter tried to name the darkness.
> 
> It didn’t have a name.

_Tony remembered it was month three, after the Snap._

_After half of the universe had disappeared._

_It was funny, but it was as if they could all physically feel the disappearance. As if all of those souls turning into nothing and flitting away into the galaxy had vanished with a puff of air that sent shivers up their bones and into their flesh. Tony forgot what it was like to not feel fully skinned alive, to not feel exposed. He supposed there was a time where he hadn’t felt the way he did, but after the kid – the kid – Peter, had turned to ash in his arms he had forgotten what life was like before and before and before._

_They lived in silence. The world did. Things were so quiet when everyone disappeared. Things were not the same. They never would be. Tony was drinking again – he couldn’t remember the last time it was so bad, that night as he was looking out the window into the stillness of the darkness…Glass, and then he squeezed – the shard sliced into him without warning and Tony let out a groan of pain._

_It splattered on the floor._

_Bitter smell filled his nose._

_Still…silence._

Peter’s mouth and eyes were closed, and he had said nothing.

 

Ever since he had woken up, Tony had expected his old self to return, but he supposed he didn’t truly know this new Peter that he had decided to claim as theirs. Strange plucked the EEG off of Peter’s head, his face was lax with nothingness, May had begun to run a damp rag through the boy’s curls where the gunk from the machine had caked in after the test. Flashing lights, something simple, but it brought forth no more answers. They didn’t feel any closer, and Tony’s chest spasmed, causing him to step away and run a hand over the side of his face, briefly making eye contact with Nat who was standing near the corner of the room next to Steve. Personal investments had been made, Tony felt it was no ones’ business, but he was trying to be better. Surviving a war with a bunch of people meant decency. They all wanted to be kinder, but Tony was angry about the situation and therefore angry at everything and everyone.

 

He had sent Ned Leeds home with his tail between his legs and an order not to speak to anyone about what had transpired. Wong had been scraped up off the ground and sent to bed. Simplistic.

 

Bruce’s voice rang out, “No abnormalities…Almost as if the seizure never even happened.”

 

“Of course not,” Tony murmured, pinching the bridge of his nose as he turned on his heels to face the rest of the room, cornered to both Steve and Natasha. Peter didn’t move, eyes still closed – as if death had decided to come after all.  It was all just a cruel trick on them, to make them think they had somehow gotten him back, but no…No, he was breathing on his own, no life support, just unmoving and unconscious. Tony continued quietly, watching May clean his hair tenderly, “Because none of this ever makes fucking sense.”

 

Steve spoke, “Maybe I pushed him too hard – he hit his head…”

 

“It’s not his head,” Strange replied, tilting his head to look at Steve, “If I had to guess, it’s Lilith. Come to collect, or to harass, I’m unsure.”

 

Natasha shook her head, “But why would he run? I mean, we get it – but he knows us. He should know none of us are going to hurt him, he should…I dunno, want us to help him?”

 

May looked up, for the first time. She had been incredibly silent, ever since they had explained the situation to her. Quiet as if her throat could not produce words and her mouth could not form them into understandable utterances. Comprehension. Tony wasn’t hearing, he remembered that silence, and emptiness of Peter turning into nothing in his arms. When he had been holding on. He inhaled and pretended not to be drowning in those memories, those memories of what it was like to miss Peter so fiercely that he thought…Surely he was going to die. Surely his chest would crack open to produce a brokenness he could not outright say.

 

Tony pretended so long he stopped feeling.

 

“He doesn’t understand,” She sounded lost, her voice broke, her eyes held pain only someone who had lost a child could understand, even if Peter’s flesh was still warm under her hands. She blinked at the group of men and one woman, staring directly into Natasha’s eyes as if to get the point across just from the way she looked, “He doesn’t get it…He…God, it makes so much sense now, what he was saying the other night. I didn’t – I thought he was just talking about gibberish.”

 

Bruce slowly set the papers on the table, “What did he say?”

 

May’s eyes flitted to him, then back to Nat, and then to Steve. There was knowing, more than they could wrap their heads around and maybe more than she could too. The rag she had been using to clean Peter’s hair slowly slipped from her hand onto the table beside her. She leaned against it, letting out a deep breath and Tony thought she looked even more tired than he felt and that was saying something. This was hard to grasp, but a part of her clung to the belief this was her Peter and Tony knew that. He was sorry.

 

Then the words came, eyes finding Natasha even though she hadn’t asked the question.

 

“He said you died.”

 

Natasha was known for her lack of reactiveness to bad news. But Tony swore she paled. May then looked at Cap and went on, “And you left…I don’t know where you went…but there you go. He isn’t – he asked about Clint Barton. I’m starting to think wherever he came from…there were a lot of things that had changed. This was a shock and not to mention, he’s not supposed to be here. I think he was _afraid_ of us. All of us.”

 

Natasha swallowed, Tony did too. Something cold crossed their paths as Clint returned to their memories simultaneously, the same feeling Tony had gotten when he had been told he had been dead in some alternate reality. A place where he had put on the gauntlet instead of Peter. Now they knew…That place had also taken Natasha, and Steve had – left? But Tony didn’t know what that meant. Bruce coughed, not awkwardly, more so as if he was choking on the shock of the information. A different world – and life and death came into question, how permanent it had been – how the smallest change could have meant a difference in their entire existences.

 

They were all just looking at each other, when Strange finally stepped forward and it was as if Tony was waiting for someone to pull him out of their stupor. He was somewhat grateful for the emotional intrusion, as if it was even such as Strange moved to the bed Peter was lying back on. He sat on the edge, reaching around the boy’s head and he began to untie the upper portion of the hospital gown he had been dressed in before pulling it downward and exposing his chest. The same location as before glowed when Strange moved his hand to hover over it, the same insignia Tony could not recognize but he could only guess was Lilith’s mark.

 

“I had hoped it wasn’t this.”

 

The words were ominous themselves. Tony had thought they had moved past not knowing, as everyone was pulled from the clutches of wondering what could have been and who could have died, and what had hurt the most. Tony stepped forward as well, biting the inside of his mouth to keep the curses at bay as May looked between Strange and Tony and Tony felt that same apology on his lips, the one that screamed he should have been there, he should have protected the kid, but he hadn’t. Peter had gone away, in his arms, and now he was back but he was different and hurt and –

 

“What is it?” Tony asked, voice forceful, trying to smother May’s panic with his own anger. He supposed – she always worried so much about that, about being too worried, about overreacting, about making the situation worse…So Tony could do it for her. “What the hell are you talking about, Strange?”

 

Strange didn’t answer the question, instead he diverted, “I have an idea. But we need to move the boy somewhere…The Compound isn’t quite functional, correct? But we need somewhere isolated.”

 

“ _Why_?” Tony hissed.

 

Strange looked at him, and surprisingly, it almost looked as if his eyes were pleading for cooperation. Strange pushed, “Is there somewhere we can go?”

 

The desperation hung on. In fact it clung and Tony was desperate to understand why those words were leaving Strange’s mouth and why he looked so concerned. Why he just – he seemed rushed. As if it was urgent and Tony’s gut wrenched. Another step, and then another, and he was close enough to be looming over Strange. May must have been prompted to step away, because she did, face worried. Tony pushed, “What the hell is this about?”

 

“It’s about the best interest of the boy, Stark, and I can’t help him here,” Strange stood, and Tony was frustrated by the height difference, “I think Lilith is playing her _game_. In order for me to help him, we need to bring him somewhere _secluded_.”

 

There was a brief moment, eyes locked. Like being on that ship again and hurdling through space. When Strange had told him the kid wasn’t a priority and Tony had to snuff out the anger that had welled. His eyes then moved away, towards May, towards her desperation. There was a brief flit of trust and he knew – he knew what it was and he knew he was going to have to agree. Because May wanted him to, he had befriended her long enough to read that. They had shared these memories with the child lying on the bed. Some kind of weird set-up of loving that human being. Like watching people bond over co-parenting and it was all so strange.

 

Tony let his chest expand, before returning his attention to Stephen, swallowing down his pride like it was the bitterest thing he had ever ingested.

 

“The lake house…it’s secluded…I’ll send the family into the city and we can have the place to ourselves but Strange – I swear to God – “

 

“You swear what?” Strange interrupted.

 

Tony poked his chest…

 

“I swear, that if it comes to you or the kid, I’ll choose the kid…Whatever you have planned, it’ll always be the kid.”

 

…

 

_They always made him have lights out by a certain time, just to make sure he got enough sleep._

_It wasn’t strictly enforced by the hospital, but Aunt May enforced it – and for some reason – so did Doctor Strange. Peter felt like Aunt May was lonely or lost or afraid because she had been letting him hang around too much and he didn’t like it. It wasn’t romantic, he wasn’t stupid, but it was still fiercely weird, and he felt uncomfortable. Doctor Strange was not Uncle Ben, not his father, not Mister Stark. Doctor Strange was a man who felt guilty._

_That night Peter was feeling particularly aggravated by this new life he had been given. But he kept his mouth shut because he didn’t want to complain. Instead he stared at the wall. Waited for them to shut off the lights. Waited, and waited and –_

_“Would you like to stay up later tonight?”_

_Doctor Strange’s voice was…soft. Gentle. As if speaking to someone tired or young._

_Peter looked at him, and he asked, “What?”_

_“I figured, you could,” Strange must have known the ‘what’ wasn’t because he hadn’t heard, but it was because he was confused._

_A pause, then, “Your little friend…Ned Leeds…He called today to inform us there was a Star Wars marathon happening. If you wanted to stay up and watch it – possibly invite him to come sit with you…You could.”_

_This wasn’t permission, it was an invitation. An olive branch._

_Peter’s eyes watered, and he nodded his head._

_“Yes…please.”_

_Anything was better than lying in the darkness for hours._

 

Peter tried to name the darkness.

 

It didn’t have a name.

 

He tried to name the corners, the edges, the lack of color, and none of it was nameable because it wasn’t comprehendible. It was real, and it wasn’t – it just wasn’t. Peter reached out in fear – and then pulled back in disbelief as there were no walls where he was and where he was smothering down and down into an endless abyss. Peter wasn’t freedom, but he didn’t know when he had started longing for it. It felt like being in the hospital again, for days in a quiet he didn’t know. In quiet he didn’t understand but pretended to.

 

“Mister Stark?”

 

Peter called out, and it echoed. Bounced around, like water, in a pool. Peter remembered his face, he remembered a lot of faces. Cap, Ned, Black Widow. Peter remembered wishing he didn’t feel so alone in himself and that he could make them all understand why he had to do what he did. Not just wishing to have Mister Stark back, but also the wish to die. He wished and wished he had never wished to die.

 

Dying was something that was supposed to be slow, not all at once.

 

Peter felt like it had happened though, all at once.

 

Maybe it was more merciful that way – but the truth was, getting old meant dying every day, slowly and maybe even suffering – but what happened to Mister Stark, that wasn’t the way to go and it wasn’t right, and he wished so badly it had never come to pass. But here in this new reality, it hadn’t. Peter had taken his place and maybe it was better or worse – he didn’t know anymore. He just knew he didn’t want to die.

 

It had to have been hours, he spent there in that darkness, not knowing what or who he was, but only figuratively. It was only when the voice echoed did true terror arrive into the creeping moments. Into that emptiness that had only just begun to frighten him past trying to name dark corners. It was silky and smooth, as it always was, the shadow arriving as it had done in the alley before consciousness had been ripped away from him like fire and stabbing pain shooting into him.

 

“I told you, you would come willingly.”

 

A hand touched his arm, and Peter flinched away, and he saw her. She smiled – almost sweetly. Reminding him of Aunt May, reminding him of comfort, but he knew what it was.

 

It was a lie.

 

A façade.

 

Peter shook his head, jaw setting, and he wanted to be brave. He so desperately wanted the bravery to overcome him – to summon whatever his other self had to have been able to put on the gauntlet. To have been able to snap his fingers and rescue everyone. But he was afraid – and he was afraid of her. But he bit the words out, managing to keep his voice steady even if he didn’t understand how he had been capable of it…

 

“I didn’t come willingly.”

 

“Oh, this isn’t the arrival,” Lilith replied, “This is only a step towards it. You’re remembering things, correct? Memories that are not your own, but those belonging to the one before you?”

 

Peter only swallowed. He knew, he had remembered, he had recalled snapping his fingers even though it had never really been him doing so. Lights and bright things, and knowing stuff he should not have known even if it disappeared on the tip of a nonexistent tongue. Peter bit down on the inside of his mouth, pretended not to be hurting and pretended not to be afraid. His silence spoke volumes though and her mouth upturned a bit.

 

“Putting on the gauntlet, snapping your fingers, opening yourself to that knowledge of the universe – you are not strong enough to categorize it…”

 

She looked down, then up as if innocent with large round eyes.

 

“It will kill you.”

 

Peter ground his teeth, anger rising. Frustration. Once he had wanted to be dead – but that was hardly the fact anymore as the rage bloomed into a whole different experience and he started to be eaten alive. Something killing him – bullshit, he had been dying for some time now. Slowly but surely being consumed by a never ending cycle of violence that he had inflicted upon himself – and for what? For Lilith to kill him? He was frightened of her, but he was not cowardly. Being brave and afraid could exist simultaneously, but sometimes he didn’t know how. But then it was born, and he blinked rapidly, staring into her eyes.

 

Another lie.

 

“I don’t remember.”

 

Feigning ignorance. A poor tactic.

 

“Then I must remind you, hm?”

 

…

 

To Bruce Banner, his body was simply a shell.

 

After becoming himself again, he had realized how little being the Hulk mattered. Whether it be Hulk Before the snap, or After, or now when he was Bruce Banner and he was himself. When he had existed for five years as something else and he couldn’t quite wrap his head around all of it. Ultimately deciding he and Natasha were better as friends, a war, Clint’s death – and the kid, Peter Parker, having been the one to take the fall for the universe even though it should have been him or one of the adults. Not some sixteen-year-old boy from Queens who was so dearly loved. Bruce supposed people cared for him, but he didn’t think anyone loved him the way he had seen the kid’s aunt and Tony love that kid.

 

In other words, they were all wallowing in guilt. Bruce was a bad preacher.

 

Natasha pulled the sheets over the edge of the mattress in the guest room of the lake house. She then tossed out the blanket to cover it, and Bruce continued to set up the machine. Their friendship was more open, they talked easier without the tenseness of wondering what they were. Friendship worked better that way, without the confusion. Bruce untangled the cords and he wished he knew what was going to happen with Strange. He wished he understood more, but it didn’t seem to be an option at the moment. They were all just doomed to this dark confusion that they were seemingly never going to piece together properly.

 

Natasha placed a pillow at the head of the bed, something like a memory crossing over her face…Like recalling. Bruce paused in what he was doing, standing to full height from across the spacious room. Bruce cleared his throat and questioned, “You alright?”

 

Natasha looked up, blinked and shook her head as if dazed. She sighed deeply and nodded, “Yeah…yeah…just…This is the first time I’ve been back since – well, you know – the memorial.”

 

The service. Something nice and gentle they had put on for Clint and his family. A way to protect his farm, his family, from prying eyes and the lake was beautiful. Tony had put it together really, Tony had done so much for that family as well as Natasha. They had all been confused and shocked by the death – they had all had the air knocked out of them. None more than Clint’s family and Natasha. Her face was blotchy, pink with emotion, and sometimes – as awful as it was – it was refreshing to see her let herself _feel_.

 

She reached out and grabbed the bedpost as if standing had suddenly burdened her.

 

“I just wish things could have been different…And apparently they were.”

 

Apparently they were – well, according to the boy that was unconscious. Bruce bit the inside of his mouth, as the world bloomed – _it wasn’t your fault_ – but you could only tell that to someone so many times before frustration got to be too much. He had been on the other side of those words, after destroying buildings, cities, lives. It didn’t help, but there was nothing left to say and he understood now why people said that first.

 

Like ‘I’m sorry for your loss’ and all of its irritation.

 

“You can’t do that to yourself…”

 

“Why not?” She questioned, “What if things were different, Bruce? I mean – Stark died in the other timeline and they’re saying I did too so that would mean…well, it would mean someone else survived too and…”

 

She trailed off. It was slow, until it disappeared completely as if it had never been there and Bruce shut his eyes in a mournful manner, pulling his glasses from his face as he rubbed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He was so sorry he didn’t know how to help her. How to make it better, how to make her understand in their illusions that this was somehow okay and that everything happened for a reason, because now they knew that wasn’t so true. Not everything happened for a reason, because it happened differently a million ways.

 

He didn’t know how to explain something he didn’t understand.

 

The words came, even though he hated them.

 

“It isn’t your fault.”

 

Her eyes screamed that she did not believe, and he wished he could make her. He wished he could, but he couldn’t. It was too silent. It was too thick and bold, and knowing and knowing. Smarter than he could ever be, wider than he could ever cross. An ocean of mourning one’s best friend, it was violent and ruthless and Bruce wanted to help, but he had no idea how when he struggled with those monsters too.

 

“You know what happened,” Natasha said bluntly, and the emotion seemed to drain back into something smothered, “You know, so you know why it is.”

 

The world quaked below them. Bruce missed understanding more.

 

He was interrupted by a wall seemingly opening beside them, but he recognized it as one of Strange’s portals almost immediately. He stepped back as Steve walked in, the boy’s body wrapped in a white blanket and carried in his arms, followed by Tony, Strange, and May Parker. They stepped through, faces stoic, stronger than Bruce could have been as the boy was laid down on the bed and Natasha stepped to give them room. Bruce moved forward, starting to hook the monitors to the boy, sticking the devices on his chest.

 

Bruce pretended not to notice Nat cleaning her face with the back of her hand.

 

Tony’s voice wasn’t silent even for a moment before he was questioning Strange, “Ready to offer that explanation I’ve been practically begging you for?”

 

“I’m ready for you to be quiet,” Strange sighed, “That’s all _I’ve_ been begging for, Stark.”

 

Bruce tried to drown them out, continuing to prep Peter for the monitors. However, he paused halfway through, about to pinch his finger in plastic when he noticed the way his knuckles tensed just in the slightest. Bruce tilted his head to the side, swallowing, blinking as he watched the fingers open and close, tense and untense. Spasm and then –

 

“Woah, woah, woah!”

 

It happened seemingly without warning, even though he had seen the movement in the boy’s fingers. The shaking and uncontrollable movements that Bruce recognized as another seizure. Peter’s body thrashed and Strange stepped towards him, but Bruce was already turning the boy onto his side. Everyone surged, but it was crowded, and Bruce wanted them to move away but he couldn’t get the words out before Strange grabbed his arm and yanked him back. Bruce tried to protest, but Strange was pressing one hand into Peter’s hair on the back of his head, and the other was pressing against the boy’s forehead.

 

The seizing stopped.

 

A breath of air stuttered and Strange’s body stilled also.

 

No one moved, and Bruce supposed he hadn’t truly thrown science out the window until that moment.


	11. Oil On Water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “What is she doing to you?”
> 
> “I see…I see…” Peter choked, then gained his breath, “Mister Stark is trying to kill me, but I dunno if…”

Peter knew it wasn’t a dream, but he wasn’t positive just how it was that he knew.

 

Maybe because he had been floating in that dark abyss so long and had yet to dream of anything. That it had transformed into a completely different existence all together and Peter’s mind struggled to make sense of it all. In its completeness, without all the missing pieces, Peter supposed it could have been something he had retained in some far-off place of his mind. Or it was something else, something else entirely that he didn’t know the name of. So, he forgot about it until it became something.

 

That something it became: Slaughter.

 

Peter didn’t recognize the place. He didn’t recognize the people. He honestly could hardly recognize himself anymore inside of a memory that was not his. But he knew one person: Thor. No one could see Peter, no one could see him in the middle of those deep woods and somehow Peter wanted to scream, but he wasn’t sure if he could. There was blood sprayed across the god’s face. Down his mouth. He was screaming some kind of warrior cry as he fought.

 

Then the memory shifted. Thor was no longer battling, but people were starving.

 

People, earth, it had to be and yet Peter didn’t know how he knew the things he did, he still had no idea. His mind wandered, he grabbed for the memories that he couldn’t make sense of. He pretended it was nothing. But he saw the little girl, with the empty bowl, and Peter wanted to give her food, but he didn’t know where to find it and so he watched her fall over and turn to ash and float up in the air and Peter remembered doing that. Vaguely, in the depths of his mind where everything was colder and more like a distant horror.

 

Peter missed home, and he tried to think of the last thing he knew, and there was so very little. Not after the alleyway, trying to get the book, trying to summon Lilith, which had turned up nothing. Zero. And so Peter floated between being himself and something else that he was frightened of. So much was wrong, Peter wanted to scream, but he didn’t think he could. It would only echo back to him, so he withheld until he felt fingernails drawing up his back and he let out a cry of pain. It burned like fire, searing hot and Peter cringed so hard into the darkness that the scene disappeared and once again, he was alone.

 

Until she appeared.

 

“Maybe you were wrong,” Lilith stated.

 

“Maybe you’re a liar,” Peter croaked, tired, “You said I saw something, I saw nothing.”

 

Lilith tilted her head, and her eyes kept doing that thing where they would blink black and then white and then black again and Peter would nearly vomit every time it happened. His shoulders shook, but he pretended nothing was wrong, because he didn’t want her to know his fear even if something in the back of his mind told him it was there. That she knew. She pointed out into the blackness where the stars erupted, Peter’s eyes reflected them sometimes and he didn’t like it. She questioned, “You seemed to miss the murder of those people.”

 

“Thor was wrong, but he’s different now.”

 

“And the starving people of your planet?” She pushed.

 

Peter ground his teeth, “Things are rough _all over_. You ever read that book?”

 

Lilith seemed unfazed by his sarcasm. She stepped towards him, and she reached out a hand, slowly, then all at once. The slap burned, almost as much as the nails going up his back a moment before and he felt where his cheek opened up, but he could not see blood. He cringed back and held his face, glaring at her. Lilith’s abuse, as time had progressed, had become worse. She was losing patience, their back and forths were frustrating to her. But it was the only way Peter knew how to defend himself. He could not go willingly. Not the way she had ‘predicted’ or decided he would, and all of his anger blossomed into rage.

 

 “And do you think Thor Odinson and your heroes have changed so much to give compassion?” She questioned through a venomous mouth, “Even your loved Stark is cruel, and his intentions have never been truthful. Those mortals call him the merchant of death for a reason. And do you know why? Because he is cold and evil, and yet for some reason you still think of me as such when I have given you what you wanted and all I ask in return is that you understand what you saw. You saw the universe when you snapped your fingers. You saw light – and darkness, and the faults in the crevices. You can hardly hide behind being a child for much longer, your ignorance has become a downfall.”

 

Peter lowered his hand from his face, “You don’t know…You don’t know any of them. You pretend to, but you’re just a liar. I bet no one cares about you, but that merchant of death, I did this because I cared about him. That’s not wrong…”

 

He almost felt like his words had done something, but her mouth began to upturn in just the slightest. Peter felt his heart sink into his stomach as a cruel smile formed, and he wondered what he had said to make her do that. To make her look like that and contort so oddly. She inhaled and sighed like speaking to a small child that just didn’t understand what she was saying and he wished he wasn’t there. His heart fluttered with fear and he moved away, but she followed in strides, beginning to speak.

 

“And do you think he cares for you? Do you truly think the merchant of death could care for _anyone_?”

 

Peter’s eyes burned.

 

“Yes.”

 

Her eyes narrowed, and Peter’s head almost exploded when a hand shot out. This time instead of slapping him – the hand planted firmly on his forehead. Much like before, when he was witnessing Thor’s slaughter of all of those people, he was rushed through the stars into something else. Something he didn’t fully understand, but wasn’t trying to. Yet again, he was plummeting, and he always seemed to be. There was never sturdy ground below his feet and he never thought he’d miss sidewalks.

 

Down. Down. Down.

 

The hand on his forehead dissipated. Lilith’s face melted down, like meat off of bone, and reformed into something much more familiar and much more terrifying. It should not have been, but the hand on his forehead released, facial hair – a man – and Peter knew him even when the hand wrapped tightly around his throat. The voice echoed off the empty walls, Peter grabbed at the wrist as he was unable to draw air into his lungs.

 

Mister Stark.

 

Peter gasped, but the hand tightened and Tony’s voice came out, but something told Peter it was only Lilith speaking…

 

“He lacks remorse.”

 

…

 

Strange blamed himself – which was an oddity for him. He wasn’t above knowing he struggled to accept that truth about himself. Taking the blame for things was a heavy burden that he pretended not to carry and yet and yet, he always avoided having the responsibility of it. This miscalculation, if he could even call it that, had completely shifted something and Strange was sure he had felt the tear in the existence of time and space, but he pretended not to because that felt almost too dramatic for his liking.

 

The seizing had turned into a clear sign of what needed to be done. He wished it wasn’t important in the first place – but somewhere in some timeline he had invested time in the child he was currently invading the subconscious of. An inner existence that stabbed with knives of mourning and loss, something he had felt within very few people and within himself. An intense cold, washing over and over again as what looked to be stars rushed past.

 

Peter Parker was, in a brief statement, perplexing. He had made the time line completely convoluted in a way that Strange himself struggled to understand. The decision had been made and yet it had been undone and Strange couldn’t understand what he had done wrong in that they had ended up where they were. Where he was, floating in the emptiness, not knowing where he was to end up. Life flew by without much warning, he had so many questions it was smothering him, but he allowed it to continue on and on and on. He felt as if he was never going to touch the ground again, until he did, suddenly with a jolt.

 

Those questions did not cease.

 

Saving Peter Parker, rescuing him from such a stupid decision, it wasn’t one of the harder things he had ever done, but it would be difficult. Maybe…maybe that was just a way to convince himself it wasn’t as big of a deal as he thought it was. As the thought of having to keep the boy alive, if not for the boy’s sake, but for Tony Stark’s. Stark didn’t trust Strange, Strange knew that. He knew that allowing the boy to put on the gauntlet would lead to that and yet Strange still couldn’t understand where he had gone wrong…He had failed to take into consideration the existence of the multiverse, but then again, hadn’t he known it was there all along?

 

By the time the whirling stopped, his brain was mush and he had more questions than answers.

 

It felt like being in a perfectly silent room with walls that could not be punctured. Voices that could not reach and Strange felt as if he was upside down in his car again. Dying, his hands destroyed, and he wondered where that thought had come from – it had been so long since he had felt that way about much of anything. Sometimes he forgot the way his hands shook, and he remembered one finger in the air ‘one chance’ one, just one, and it had involved sacrificing a child and emotionally destroying one of the Earth’s best defenders.

 

A result.

 

Not the result he had wanted, but a result nonetheless. Strange blinked heavily, looking around, before he held out a hand with the hopes to produce light. The sparks appeared, but the darkness was so thick it merely illuminated a few inches in front of him. It felt like enough to drive any sane person mad, and Strange inhaled deeply, blinking again and again with the hopes it would somehow clear up his inability to see in front of his face.

 

_“You sacrificed a fucking kid!”_

_“Stark, it was the only way.”_

_“I don’t believe that for one second – get out of here!”_

As much as Strange had wished to rectify what he had done, he had felt it was the best way, but then there was some other place where he hadn’t made that decision and he wondered…Could they really be so different from one another? Himself and another Stephen Strange, maybe with different experiences, different thoughts, different sorts of compassion towards a teenager that was at risk.

 

Strange kept trying to rationalize a decision that didn’t have a rational explanation. It was what it was: absolute bullshit and he had been blamed for it and he wondered if he had made the wrong decision. Or if he had made the wrong decision to try to save the boy – to enter his mind – but if he didn’t…surely Stark would never recover and –

 

His thoughts exploded, erupted into a bright light and then disappeared. There was filtered gasping, it sounded wet like someone had been choking, or blood pooling someone’s lungs full of unforgiving liquid. His head whipped in that direction, eyes going wide with perplexed weight followed again by raging blindness from the bright light. A shadow was hunched a few feet away, showing itself from ash and dust and quiet tears. Strange’s mind took a few moments to catch up, but he knew it was a child, crumbled forward, and Strange surged immediately.

 

“Peter?”

 

The form didn’t look at him, but once Strange was in reach, he fell to his knees beside the boy. The room smelled almost like an ice rink and Peter smelled frozen, if such a thing made sense. Slowly, the child lifted his head and Strange didn’t touch him. Brown eyes met Strange’s, teary and bloodshot, his face cut across his cheek as if he had been struck. He blinked a few times, bruising crawling up his throat as he coughed, looking at Strange as if he was the oddest thing he had seen in his entire life…

 

“Doc…Doctor Strange?”

 

His voice sounded rough and abused. As if he had been screaming, but from the markings on his neck, Strange doubted that was the case. And following such bruises, Lilith couldn’t be far…Whether or not that was a part of her plan, Strange didn’t know and he didn’t much care. The point was to retrieve the boy, bring him back to his conscious state by physically removing him. Lilith’s abuse could be dealt with at a later time once they knew the boy wasn’t going to seize and die at any sudden moment.

 

“Yeah kid, it’s me,” Strange answered, reaching out carefully to touch his shoulder. He didn’t miss the way Peter flinched under his hand heavily and Strange went on, “Don’t worry, I’m here to get you out of this hell hole.”

 

Peter’s flinch turned into a sharp cringe and he pressed his palm to his temple. He shut his eyes tightly, face growing pink, even in the dark lighting as he strained to keep his eyes open. Peter doubled over and Strange let out a surprised sound, grabbing for the boy’s arms to hold him upright in their kneeling positions. Strange breathed, “Hey, hey…kid, look at me.”

 

“She’s…she keeps…” Peter didn’t finish, just let a high-pitched sound of pain, continuing to squirm heavily under the hand that held his arm. He shook it back and forth, and his eyes opened just enough to meet Strange’s gaze, “She’s…Or it’s him, I don’t know.”

 

“Him,” Strange’s brows furrowed, “Who?”

 

Peter’s lip trembled, and he shook his head again, as if saying ‘no’, but then the words left his lips anyway…

 

“Mister Stark…He’s trying to kill me – but I know – it has to be her, right?”

 

Strange wasn’t sure what he was asking. Almost as if he was outside of the conversation that Peter was having, but he was the one the question was directed towards. He blinked rapidly, shaking his head back and forth as he leaned forward towards the boy, taking his face in his hand to catch his frantic gaze. Strange whispered, as if someone would hear them, “Are you talking about Lilith?”

 

Peter’s chest heaved, his body shaking as if it was cold – uncontrollably. Like he had been dunked into an ice bath and left to sink below it. Strange held tightly to his face, trying to meet his gaze, but his eyes were shifting like paranoia was digging deeply and he couldn’t uncover himself from it. Strange felt confusion, and concern, but buried it in favor of his clinical undertone. He leaned forward, forcing Peter to meet his eyes and pulling his face downward so they were at each other’s level. Peter blinked, looking at him as if he had just noticed he was there.

 

“What is she doing to you?”

 

“I see…I see…” Peter choked, then gained his breath, “Mister Stark is trying to kill me, but I dunno if…”

 

Peter trailed off, and before Strange could ask more, Strange heard a voice from behind him…A woman’s, sweet and soft, like he was hearing something from Mother Theresa. Strange didn’t turn immediately, as it waved through the air…

 

“Ah…the sorcerer…I see you found your way in.”

 

Strange released Peter’s face, beginning to stand slowly. He turned finally to face the woman – demon…Lilith, behind him. Her eyes were almost inviting, but Strange knew the truth that laid beyond as he moved to stand in front of Peter, who was still kneeling behind him. He felt fingers wrap themselves in the ankle of his pants, as Peter held on as if desperate for something to ground him into the moment. It was unsettling, there in that world between reality and not-so-much. Lilith drew forward and Strange held up his hand, sparks threatening…

 

“Don’t.”

 

She paused, just a moment. But she looked more entertained, her mouth opening and a smile blooming. She stepped back though, as if just to humor him. Her head tilted and she replied, “Nervous, are we? Well, you have nothing to fear, Stephen Strange. The boy is the one who owes me a debt, not you.”

 

“From what I understand he shouldn’t owe you anything,” It was bullshit, Strange was making it up as he went along, but he needed an opportunity – a way to get Peter out, to hold her off until they could figure something else out, “He wanted Stark alive.”

 

“And I gave him that.”

 

“But not his Stark, correct?” Strange questioned, “Sounds like you’ve done it all wrong…”

 

She hummed, and he could tell she wanted to step forward again. But instead her hand slowly raised, and she moved it, her fingers, and a hue formed in the vision of icy fire. Strange swallowed, and planted his feet as she began, sounding less amused now…

 

“I really must insist you step aside.”

 

“And I really must insist you release the boy,” Strange concluded sharply, “He isn’t one of your play things, and he was deceived. It will be much simpler for you if you would allow me to leave with him unharmed.”

 

There was this moment – brief and silent that Strange almost thought he had convinced her. Which was stupid in retrospect, Lilith would never feel threatened by someone she considered to be a second-rate sorcerer. It was as quick as a heartbeat, but it had been there, nonetheless. He tried to grasp a hold to the moment, but it disappeared and he let it go because it was useless to him anyway. Strange looked back at Peter, who was blinking rapidly as if his mind couldn’t catch up, and he wondered what exactly she had reached in and done to him and hoped it wasn’t permanent.

 

One…two…three…

 

That spark went towards him, Lilith had given no other warning. Strange ducked downward into a crouch, waving one hand while the other was raised into the air, index and middle finger up. A circle motion looped around, and he pushed the yellow and orange symbols towards her in a blast. The action carried and she waved one hand, not anticipating the second wave that followed directly after, slamming into her and throwing her into the bleakness that surrounded them. He had feared spells would betray him there – wherever they were, before he whirled back towards the boy behind him. Peter looked as if he had been pumped with some hallucinogen, like the people who would sometimes stumble in from the street into the hospital.

 

He took him near, waved a hand, and they whirled.

 

For the second time, relatively quickly, they were falling again. In the back of Strange’s mind he knew that wouldn’t be the last they saw of the demon…A simple, temporary fix, a childish spell for something too large. But enough to give them time – to figure it out, and it felt like surfacing from water, when his grew back into his limbs and he took a breath into his body, back in that bedroom in the lake house. Bright light blinded him, Strange stumbled back from the boy on the bed and someone grabbed his arms. He turned to see Natasha Romanoff there, her brows turned downward and someone was screaming.

 

It took all of fifteen seconds to gather his bearings and realize that it was Peter…Sitting up in bed and wailing.

 

As bloody as it sounded, it was good, that the boy’s eyes were open, that he was in his body, that he was making noise and not soundless like he had been in that alleyway after the first seizure, after Lilith had tried her damndest to take him before the deal was done. Strange shrugged Natasha off, and moved to the boy, but Stark was already going towards him, all the while Bruce was trying to put an oxygen mask to his face. Peter thrashed, he thrashed so hard Strange looked at Steve and ordered harshly, “Grab him.”

 

“Don’t,” Stark snapped just as fiercely, “He just woke up – God, give him a second, let me – “

 

He tried for the boy, but Peter’s eyes only widened upon seeing the man. Strange grabbed the back of Stark’s shirt when Peter ordered, voice coming out broken, “Get away!”

 

Strange yanked, Stark looked hurt for only a moment by Peter’s order, before he whirled to slam a fist into Strange’s forearm to order release. Steve was moving then, doing as Strange had told him and taking Peter – as Strange assumed Steve would be one of the only ones capable of doing so physically. Stark looked on, horrified and Strange inhaled deeply, whispering to the man as he tried to calm him as well, his own heart racing from the encounter with Lilith, “ _You_ need to give him a second…Lilith used your image for torture, Stark, don’t be so rash.”

 

“She used me for…” His voice died, breaking unevenly.

 

Strange struggled to understand their relationship sometimes. Something parental, but why? A part of him accused Stark of being irresponsible…bringing a child into something no child could begin to understand – but he always fought that down because accusing Tony Stark of such things wasn’t wise and lacked tact. Strange’s eyes flitted back towards Peter, who was no longer fighting with Steve Rogers, but was physically gasping, as if he couldn’t breathe properly even with the oxygen mask on. Strange looked towards the door, where May Parker had seemingly been pushed. He held out a hand and ordered, “Come here.”

 

May didn’t hesitate. He supposed that was love. She stepped forward, knowing what he meant before he had said it and she went to the boy, immediately cupping his face. Stark stood by, awkwardly, and Strange wanted to say something…Anything to make him understand that he hadn’t done the boy any harm, that it was Lilith – what she had done, or at least what Strange thought she had done. Parker wasn’t crying, per se, but the sound of his raspy breathing was filling the room as they looked at one another in a silent horror.

 

Stephen Strange did not understand, and yet he was so very sorry.

 

…

 

Tony wasn’t good at comforting.

 

But he had to admit, Peter telling him to get away stung, even if Strange had somewhat explained why.

 

The way fire burned in his skull, the way it threatened to snap open, the way anger boiled over and he suddenly wanted so desperately to explode into a million pieces…It was all anger. Anger at some demon he couldn’t wrap his hands around, some demon that had used him – or his image more so, to hurt the kid. Tony was boiling, kept pacing, even if Bruce had insisted for him to sit down. To take a deep breath. He couldn’t. Not thinking about it, not watching as May sat on the corner of the mattress, sliding her hands gently through Peter’s hair before they stopped and the boy was sitting up, leaned against the headboard.

 

New Orders: Explanations. Briefing.

 

They had to find out where to move from there.

 

This kid’s eyes looked a bit uneven. Like he was exhausted, but too frightened to shut them as the heroes stood scattered around the room. Tony casted a few looks towards Strange, the lake house devoid of much sound as they waited for Peter to begin. He was alive, taken from inside his head, and he was afraid and Tony was so, so sorry. Desperately, and sucked air in, and then out.

 

“She said I would come willingly.”

 

It came suddenly, without warning. They all perked up to listen. Peter was looking at May when he said it, as if she was holding him down and she was gripping his hand. His eyes looked lost and sorry, as if he was stuck in the middle of an ocean with no way out and Tony fought the urge to step forward, to tell Strange to send him in, to kill Lilith like they had done Thanos…But no, Peter – or other Peter? Had killed Thanos, not them. They had failed and then a child had to take their places, and Tony hated it. He hated it.

 

Peter went on…

 

“She…she showed me Thor…killing people. I guess it was before…and then she showed me people starving – we had done all of those things, you know? I guess…I only believed her a second…And then Mister Stark…”

 

Peter paused, he inhaled, and he bit his tongue.

 

“She called you the merchant of death.”

 

Tony knew there had to be more on that, the way Peter’s eyes looked void and haunted. Peter looked at Tony, chewing his mouth and he shook his head, face sincere as he went on, vehemently, “But I still didn’t wanna go…A-and, you know, I know it wasn’t you Mister Stark. I know. It was just – I had just woken up.”

 

_“I don’t wanna go…Please, I don’t wanna go.”_

Tony almost visibly flinched at the memory that assaulted him like a thousand pounds. He inhaled and nodded his head as if he understood, when really, deep down, it was like he was dying. Peter looked so terribly young, and Tony was so sorry. He didn’t know how to express it though, he didn’t know how to say it. That he didn’t blame Peter for telling him to get away. That even if he didn’t fully understand, he could try and that he was going to get rid of Lilith, he didn’t care how.

 

 

“You know, not a whole lot is different here…Besides Black Widow, Cap and…Clint Barton,” Peter’s shoulders were slumped, “I swear, I didn’t mean to destroy my timeline. And I didn’t mean to-to sell my soul, I just wanted to bring Mister Stark back, it wasn’t _fair_.”

 

Peter looked at his hands and Tony noticed they were shaking. He seemed to hesitate, finding words, licking his lips and Tony felt his chest crack open with confusion, he didn’t know how to feel as Peter went on…

 

“And then that night happened. I tried to do something really, really bad. I wish I hadn’t. I wish I hadn’t, because so many more bad things happened because of it. I was trapped – I was trapped, and no one trusted me anymore. I couldn’t even be Spider-Man, and Aunt May…”

 

He looked into her eyes, as if desperate for her to understand, “I hurt you, and then…And then Doctor Strange was always following me, so were Bucky and Sam, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t not bring him back, I just thought if I could, maybe everything would go back to normal. Things would be okay again. But they’re worse because I screwed up _real_ bad again, and now my timeline is destroyed.”

 

Tony blinked and spoke for the first time.

 

“They left Barnes and Wilson to babysit you?”

 

He was trying to mask his genuine sickness with the sarcasm, but Peter’s suffering was too great. Tony could hardly breathe, and he felt incredibly sickened. Angry. He didn’t know why and it took everything not to drive a hand into the wall. Peter’s eyes met him, as if gauging his reaction, the words, the way they were said to figure out if they were angry or not.

 

No one answered, and instead Strange stepped forward, clearing his throat…

 

“Lilith should be held off…for now,” Strange explained, “I attempted a spell to bind her. It won’t hold her forever, but I’m hoping it’ll buy us time to come up with some kind of plan. A way to fight back. To remove the mark…Which is our ultimate goal.”

 

He paused, then, “We remove the mark, and we remove her binding to him.”

 

“And what? We’re sitting ducks?” Tony questioned, “We just let you grab the reins?”

 

“Have you got a better plan?” Strange replied.

 

Tony nodded, “Yeah, fry the bitch.”

 

Strange let out a sound of disbelief, “Wow, very insightful.”

 

It was impatience. He wanted the kid fixed, he wanted him helped, he wanted it to end right then in that moment. He wanted Lilith gone from their fucking lives and he wanted them to be free of this. When he looked into Peter’s face, he didn’t see some other Peter, this was their Peter, he was alive, and he selfishly didn’t care about the universe that didn’t exist anymore. Because theirs did, and Peter was in theirs. Tony opened his mouth to say more, to swipe out the sarcasm, because his humored masked anxiety, maybe Strange’s sarcasm did too, but he still hated it…selfishly.

 

Tony moved forward.

 

“You get the mark off,” Tony said matter of factly, “And I’ll burn her.”


	12. Iceberg, Right Ahead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Your reactor,” Peter felt his throat tighten, “They – you know, the funeral. It was almost like something from…from Star Wars, when they put Padme Amidala in the water…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Hi guys!!!!!!!!! I just wanted to give a quick warning, this chapter speaks heavily on Peter's attempt, so just be warned and if you think this chapter will hurt you in anyway, please don't read!❤

_The internship was a dream come true._

_Even if there were people who didn’t believe it, even if to him he didn’t know if it was really fake or not – it was a dream. Being able to see the labs, the offices, go into SI and participate in things he could never have even theorized were possible – it was absolutely insane. The entire program itself was interesting, being there with other kids like him. Kids who were excited to learn what they could. Sure, he didn’t get to see Mister Stark all the time, considering Miss Potts handled most of the business now, but getting to see Miss Potts and Happy was cool too. Though he did wonder what Mister Stark did on most days._

_It was on week two of the internship though, he noticed things with the other kids were getting weird._

_It was small at first, side glances – the way they seemed to move when he came forward. Silence and foreboding and Peter brushed it off. At school he was sort of treated differently because he was awkward, kind of shy. But then it slowly became more intense. The other kids would hardly look him in the eyes. They would rarely say anything to him at all, and truthfully, that in itself felt completely isolating in a place he thought he would love. Sure, he still loved it – but it took a bit of time for him to catch on with what was going on._

_Happy picked him up from school usually and brought him to SI. Happy usually brought him home. Miss Potts would tell him hello in the hallways when their group was moving from room to room if they happened to pass one another. She’d ask how Aunt May was and Peter would normally give the mundane “She’s good” answer. “She’s fine”. That sort of thing. Peter had only come to realize that these small encounters bloomed open something he couldn’t comprehend. A rejection he had never encountered along with stares of disdain from the people he had hoped to befriend._

_So Peter told Happy he didn’t have to give him rides anymore. If Miss Potts was coming down the hallway, he would duck into a different room. Peter told Happy Aunt May was the one giving him rides. It was a simple enough excuse and he supposed he should have known better, but he hadn’t even realized his lies were morphing into something different. He and Mister Stark didn’t speak regularly, he was given the internship, but Iron Man was a busy guy. Wrapped up in all of that business._

_One day during their lunch break, while Peter was sitting alone where he usually did out front near the fountain, a few of the other high school interns approached him. It felt very high school esque and he didn’t know why he expected any different. Aunt May had always said high school follows you into work, that some people don’t change. These were still teenagers, after all, and Peter swallowed down a bit of the ham sandwich that Aunt May packed for him that morning while he was running late._

_“Hey…Parker, isn’t it?” One of the boys, Peter believed his name was Vincent or something of the sort, said. His face was unreadable, not the same entertained look Flash would often give when he was about to screw with him. Peter set his sandwich down away from his mouth and nodded his head mutely. He had learned enough about being ‘bullied’ that it was recognizable, almost like a head cold._

_Vincent nodded in confirmation, “Thought so…so this is you, right?”_

_He held up his phone. The screen was pulled up on one of those tabloid websites. The silly ones that no one paid much mind to. The picture was in fact himself, smiling and seemingly talking with his hands. Peter could remember the day because the front of his shirt was stained with blue paint from art class. Happy was in the shot, in the corner, moving towards him and standing in front of the open car door was Tony, arms crossed over his chest and sunglasses between his fingers as he watched Peter’s face intently, seemingly absorbing every word. Peter couldn’t recall what he had been talking excitedly about, but it was probably because Tony had showed up with Happy that day, which was a surprise in itself._

_That had been several weeks ago. Mister Stark had never really told him what the visit was for. Had only asked about school, grades, Aunt May, and life. Not really even about Spider-Man. Peter remembered Mister Stark had walked with him all the way up to the apartment, had ruffled his hair messily before leaving. Peter hadn’t questioned until later why Mister Stark was there in the first place, and when he had asked Happy, the man had simply responded, ‘He checks up on you. Guess my updates aren’t as much as he wants.’_

_Peter blinked a few times at the image, the memory slipping away as he leaned to sit a bit straighter on the concrete wall. The fountain sounded louder and his social anxiety spiked, recalling how it was when Miss Potts spoke to him…When Happy dropped him off…how they were all staring at him waiting for a response. Peter cleared his throat, his face was clear as day in the image, so he just tried to shrug it off, “Uh yeah…yeah that’s…I think that was the day I had the interview for the internship.”_

_“That’s funny,” Vincent pulled the phone away and looked at it, “Because, looks like this was taken after interviews were conducted…And I’ve been asking around and it sounds like no one else was personally interviewed by Tony Stark himself.”_

_Peter blinked, “I…It was a scholarship opportunity cause we’re…you know, lower income.”_

_Vincent pursed his lips, “Lower income? So what, Tony Stark doesn’t pay child support?”_

_Peter felt like he had been struck. He blinked, looking at Vincent incredulously. His mind wandered, and he tried to connect the pieces in his brain about what that meant. Peter swayed and pushed himself from the wall slowly, and laughed nervously as if to get rid of the awkwardness in the air, “Why would Tony Stark pay child support?”_

_He went to move around the group, but Vincent stepped forward, and Peter backed up, hitting the concrete. His fingers itched in defense, his senses were crawling, Peter fought the urge to shove him away and give himself space. Vincent was finally looking crueller, even more than Flash as he hummed, “So…you’re not some secret love child?”_

_“What!?” Peter croaked, but it came out almost shrill, “No, no, no that’s crazy. That’s completely nuts.”_

_“Then how do you know him?”_

_“I just…” Peter breathed shakily, “I met him a-at a school thing. A scholarship thing, like I said. He helped me, he…he thought I would make a good addition to the company so he gave me the internship. Now can I – can I please go? I gotta…go to the restroom and it’s almost time to clock back in…”_

_Vincent stood still a few more moments. He looked disbelieving. He still wasn’t stepping out of the way when Peter glanced over his shoulder towards the lobby doors. Happy’s shadow was there, before it started to move forward towards the group. Peter’s heart leapt and he went forward, moving through Vincent and the others, brushing shoulders as he hurried towards the building before Happy could intervene._

_Peter tried to walk around Happy as well, waving a bit, but Happy’s hand wrapped around his upper arm tightly. He was pulled back and Peter looked over his shoulder, seeing the boys watching with their arms crossed over their chests. Happy leaned in close and questioned, “What was that?”_

_“Nothing,” Peter insisted, rolling his eyes as he sighed, “It was nothing, just some – we were talking.”_

_“That didn’t look like talking, that looked like they were about to jump you.”_

_“They weren’t gonna jump me…” Peter murmured, shuffling his shoes before he looked at the building around Happy. He gestured for it weakly and asked, “C-can I go? I really…I gotta pee.”_

_Happy hesitated, but eventually he stepped aside. Peter pushed through towards the building and into the doors. That day had probably been one of the most awkward lunches of his life. Even when Flash would screw with him in the cafeteria, it didn’t compare because he had wanted this to be work, and all of a sudden it wasn’t, it was high school and being backed into corners, and people looking at him as if he had done something wrong when he had no idea what it was that he had done._

_The rest of the day was spent in a bit of silence from himself. Considering what he had done wrong, if there was a way he could have avoided all of those questions. Happy hovered, but kept his distance as if he was concerned about what was going on with Peter. Pondering was deadly, but he allowed it, as he sat filling out pages and pages of papers that were just a part of the job. A part of the deal, but didn’t outweigh the fun he had. Now Vincent and the others might would make it unbearable, and he considered how the rest of the internship was going to go if it was spent in such misery from those people._

_They were thirty minutes from getting to go home when it happened._

_The interns were doing their evening tasks of organizing paperwork for the office, all sitting in the back room, their desks not even separated by cubicles, but interning couldn’t be glamorous all the time. Peter tried to ignore Vincent and his friends, glancing at him, whispering about him, and he told himself it was just paranoia. He went on with his work, reminded himself he and Ned were going to watch a movie that night and that everything would be okay._

_Then the door opened…And high heels entered._

_All the paper seemed to stop shuffling at once and when Peter looked up he was surprised to see Miss Potts there. She was smiling, and she greeted, “Everyone, we have a surprise visit from someone I think you’ll all be very excited to meet, he –“_

_She didn’t get to finish when a figure entered the room, and immediately whispers erupted. Excited and everyone’s eyes went wide. Peter felt his stomach twist at the sight of Mister Stark, followed in by Happy. Peter immediately looked down at his papers and continued his work, trying not to make eye contact as he ducked a bit downward. He put his palm on his forehead, like it was going to do anything to hide him. He knew Mister Stark had begun to speak, but all he could hear was ringing in his ears._

_“So this is where all the shiny new interns hang out. Well, better than what it used to be, I remember the old man used to basically lock the interns in broom closest when they weren’t doing coffee runs. Working on…hm, stock data? What’s your name?”_

_Peter’s head snapped up. Mister Stark had moved from the door towards Vincent. Mister Stark had the papers in his hands and Vincent looked shocked, staring up into his face. Mister Stark blinked down over his sunglasses, as if waiting for Vincent to respond, but he was taking several moments. Finally though, the other teenager croaked, “J-just organizing…uh…sir. Not…imputing anything…”_

_Mister Stark nodded and hummed, setting the papers down. There was a slight glance in Peter’s direction and when eye contact was made – so brief no one could notice, Peter’s head yanked downward back towards the papers on the desk. He stared at them, and swallowed thickly. His mind raced and raced –_

_‘please, please, please don’t, please don’t’_

_“You said Vincent?”_

_“Yes sir.”_

_“Vincent Carol.”_

_There was a pause. Peter dared to look up a bit. Mister Stark looked differently and his shoulders were a bit broader. Peter wanted to claw at his throat, as he looked at Happy and there was just – Happy was looking at Peter, eyes knowing and Peter wanted to crawl into a hole and die all of a sudden. Vincent stuttered, “Well I – well I didn’t say my…”_

_“Didn’t have to,” Mister Stark interrupted, and Peter felt himself flash back to that rooftop, the same tone bubbling outward, “I checked your file, did some background digging. Seems my assistant must’ve missed something. You don’t meet the GPA requirements to be here, do you Mister Carol?”_

_A weird air overcame them. Peter gulped and he wasn’t even the one sitting under Mister Stark’s gaze. Peter nearly shrunk in on himself, trembling a bit as he did so, fighting the urge to chew his nails. Vincent shook his head and words tumbled, “No, no, sir you don’t understand, that was recent…There was this class and I –“_

_“Lied,” Mister Stark provided, “I understand, it happens to the best of us. But, unfortunately, we’re going to have to let you go. So, my friend Happy here is going to show you out and, look at the time – “ Mister Stark glanced at his watch, “Looks like it’s the end of your shifts. You’re all free to go, but Mister Carol won’t be back.”_

_Peter had never heard something so final, and when Mister Stark clapped his hands together, Peter flinched. There was one last glance towards Peter, and this time Peter wasn’t the one to break eye contact as Mister Stark exited the room, followed by Happy and Vincent. It was only moments later when Miss Potts dismissed them that everyone else began to hesitantly grab their things, seemingly shell shocked by what they had just witnessed and feeling terribly awkward._

_Peter packed his backpack and threw it over his shoulder. Something cold had arrived in the pit of his stomach and he felt nauseous as he moved down the hallways, squeezing past business men and women. He walked by the restrooms, towards the staircase when he rounded the final corner, but just as he did, another figure appeared. Peter nearly screeched when he rammed into the person’s chest and he looked up after his nose had been smashed into a blue tie. Mister Stark was looking down at him, eyebrow raised and sunglasses hiding another expression Peter couldn’t decipher. His mind exploded and Peter went to step back but a hand wrapped around his arm and he was tugged in the opposite direction from the exit._

_Peter blinked, the hand on his upper arm not necessarily impeding, but Peter felt too nervous to try to escape. Instead he questioned, “Mister Stark, wha – what are we doing, where are we –“_

_They ducked into a larger office. Bigger than any of the ones Peter had ever seen, but when he saw a certificate on the wall with Miss Potts’ name, he realized it must have been hers. Peter walked in when he was released and Mister Stark followed, shutting the door behind him. Peter looked around at the giant room, amazed as Mister Stark approached the drinks in the corner of the room. Peter swallowed when Mister Stark asked, “Orange juice? Soda? I’d offer a martini, but I have a feeling May would put my head on a platter. Plus, getting caught up in this at fifteen probably isn’t the wisest.”_

_“Sixteen,” Peter whispered._

_Mister Stark sighed, and rolled his eyes, “I know, kid. The lab, remember? The one you turned down?”_

_The lab. The giant lab in the Compound that Mister Stark was building specifically for him, for his sixteenth birthday. The lab Peter had refused to take, but had been forced upon him anyway because well…that was just how Mister Stark worked. Peter shifted uncomfortably on his feet, recalling the birthday party with just him, Aunt May, and Ned. When Miss Potts had shown up with Mister Stark, just in passing while they were on their way to a fancy business dinner. Supposedly Aunt May had told Mister Stark he was not allowed to provide Peter with a car considering he only had a permit and they weren’t sure how long they were going to wait on the license._

_They had stayed long enough for him to blow out the candles._

_Mister Stark moved towards him, sipping from his glass. A soda was pushed towards Peter anyway, but he didn’t try to open it. Peter averted his eyes, glancing at the wall as frustration boiled. His mind faltered and Peter shifted on his feet as Mister Stark stood over him like a looming shadow and Peter wondered if the man knew how small it made him feel compared to him. Peter cleared his throat, as it bubbled and outweighed his frustration…_

_“Why’d you do that?”_

_“Do what?” Mister Stark hummed, “Expose a liar?”_

_“Call him out in front of everyone?” Peter finally looked at him, face pained and confused, “They’ll…I know Happy said something to you and now they’ll all think it’s because of me, and it was. I don’t understand why you had to do that.”_

_Mister Stark clicked his tongue, “So you lied too then? They were messing with you?”_

_Peter choked on air, his spine straightening as his expression turned into hurt, remembering the conversation at lunch. Peter’s fingers tightened on his backpack strap and he trembled as he pushed the words from his mouth, “They…they weren’t…they were just asking about some gossip website, they thought – they thought because of a picture I…”_

_“Woah, what?” Tony held up a hand, removing his sunglasses, “A picture? What picture?”_

_“Of you and me,” Peter moved to a nearby chair and plopped down weakly, blinking rapidly as he shook his head, “We were talking, you were at my school that day – I don’t even remember what we were talking about but…anyway, Vincent thought I was your like…kid or something. It was weird, and they’ve been acting weird ever since Happy started dropping me off and Miss Potts would sometimes say hi to me and…”_

_He trailed off, when Mister Stark’s face twisted and he questioned, “This has been happening for a while?”_

_“Well…not the stuff with Vincent,” Peter whispered, “Just…everyone. They think I’m weird.”_

_Mister Stark let out a deep breath, and Peter couldn’t tell if he was frustrated or sad. Probably frustrated as he approached and sat slowly on the edge of the coffee table in front of Peter. He set his drink aside and placed his elbows on his knees, leaning forward. Peter watched his face carefully and Mister Stark explained, “Listen, you’re…I’m not gonna lie, you’re a weird kid.”_

_Peter looked away and Mister Stark continued hurriedly as if he could see the hurt, “But that’s not bad, got it? It got you noticed by me, all those other kids…Not to say they’re not brilliant, but they’re just like each other.”_

_“Mister Stark, don’t say that,” Peter insisted, feeling pain for them, “Don’t say that…They work hard.”_

_“It’s the truth, kid. It’s how the world works, and it’s unfortunate, but I can’t give my attention to every promising person that walks through those doors,” Mister Stark stated bluntly, “Noble of you to defend them. That’s not to say they don’t deserve decent respect, they do, they’re bright. But you…you’re brighter. And I’m capable of realizing that. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you get to come to the Compound, that’s why you have my phone number. You’re gonna be something special, I’m not gonna live forever, one day you’ll be the one telling those kids what to do and –“_

_Peter’s eyes went wide, “What? No…no, no, no…What’re you talking about?”_

_Mister Stark paused, and Peter went on, “I can’t…I can’t tell anyone what to do, Mister Stark. This is your company and –“_

_“Everyone needs a successor.”_

_“You don’t,” Peter croaked, “Especially not me.”_

_“Too bad. I picked you.”_

_“You can’t,” Peter’s chest stuttered, “You can’t, I won’t…I won’t let you. I’m just a kid, and I-I burned my grilled cheese yesterday, the whole apartment was smoky and Aunt May had to use an extinguisher and –“_

_Mister Stark scoffed, “It’s a good thing I don’t plan on dying yet. Don’t worry, you’re going to turn into an adult, and I’m very thrilled to see it happen. Right now you’re here to learn though, not to be pestered by brats like Vincent Carol who had to lie about their GPA to get into the program. Now c’mon, up. I want a cheese burger and someone told me you didn’t finish your sandwich today.”_

_“But, but, but,” Peter tried as Mister Stark stood and pulled him along. An arm wrapped around his shoulder and pulled him to the door._

_“But, but, but, nothing. Little spiders need nourishment.”_

Peter startled.

 

‘Don’t worry, you’re going to turn into an adult, and I’m very thrilled to see it happen.’

 

Peter wondered if that conversation existed here. If it happened here, or back home, as the old Peter’s memories started to get mixed in somewhere in his skull. He shifted a bit, on the dock where the sun was rising and there was fog caressing the top of the water. Peter swallowed back tears, pushing himself upward, mind wandering in and out of the memory and he couldn’t tell if he had fallen asleep or not. It was early, too early to be awake, and his eyes felt heavy. But sleep evaded him, it welcomed memories that weren’t his, or other Peter’s or Lilith’s and those were even more unwelcomed.

 

The last time he had been on that dock had been when Tony’s reactor was placed into the water to float away. It took time for Peter to realize he had not liked it, because the symbolism was lost. The reactor would sink, would it not? And then rust and be nothing. It would mean nothing and he had trouble realizing why they could not keep it. To have been promised a legacy and have nothing, but a handful of nightmares, Peter was inching closer to that desired destruction. Then he shoved it down, in the depth where it belonged.

 

_It should have been you in the water, not him._

And Lilith – Lilith – her voice clicked in and then out with those words on her tongue. Peter flinched, shoved his palm into his temple and pretended not to be afraid. But he felt like he was swallowing so much fear it was a lot like bile, rising in his throat. His train of thought silenced though, as a voice spoke from a little further down the dock…

 

“You’re up early.”

 

Peter’s head whipped in the voice’s direction, seeing Mister Stark there. In one hand was a steaming coffee mug and in the other was a glass filled to the brim with what appeared to be orange juice. Peter blinked as the man approached him and held out the orange juice for him to take. Peter brought it between shaky fingers, resisting the urge to run and hide, because the adults and their silence had brought a lot of anxiety. Tony sat slowly beside him, bringing his coffee to his lips and Peter watched with just a bit of envy.

 

Peter murmured, trying to joke almost, to drown his fear, “Wish I could have coffee.”

 

“Against Strange and Banner’s orders,” Tony commented after swallowing, “Course if it was up to me, I’d let you enjoy something. I know…Well, I mean, I see you’re in your head, so maybe a bit of caffeine would help. They think it’ll worsen the anxiety, but I’ve always found coffee rather calming.”

 

“I think you’re the only one,” Peter looked away, still holding the orange juice between his fingers as he stared over the water. He chewed the inside of his mouth as he thought, and he didn’t know what he was thinking exactly. Words came and went and threatened and then pulled back and he wished they would form. His thumb slid over the glass, and he muttered, though he didn’t know where the words came from, “I…This is where they put your reactor.”

 

“What?”

 

“Your reactor,” Peter felt his throat tighten, “They – you know, the funeral. It was almost like something from…from Star Wars, when they put Padme Amidala in the water…”

 

Tony let out a breath as if he had been punched, then his words came as if he was trying to joke, but the weight of the words were so heavy that he was struggling, “Did you just use a Star Wars reference to describe my funeral? I swear to God, kid.”

 

The kid knew it was supposed to be funny, but Peter could hardly breathe as he remembered it, all the while Tony was sitting beside him. He forced the orange juice down his throat. He swallowed. He was trembling, and he didn’t know why he was drowning as his eyes began to burn with the memory. Mister Stark was watching him, and finally Peter made eye contact again, chest feeling rather heavy. Mister Stark’s joke died, and seriousness was born, simply…

 

“Tell me what happened. How you tried to do it.”

 

And Peter knew, he knew, he knew what the question was about.

 

“It doesn’t matter.”

 

“It does to me.”

 

Peter blinked, hard, and he felt shame. His cheeks burned with it as he looked down at the glass in his hand, and his throat got even more clogged with emotion. His life felt undeniably heavy because of it, he felt broken and drowning and swallowed. Peter coughed to fight it. He then shook his head back and forth, “Why?”

 

“Don’t fucking ask me why…Why do you think?”

 

There was an undertone of anger. Maybe not at Peter, but at the horrific situation that it was. The darkness that shrouded it. There was nothing sweet about it, nothing like ‘oh he cared for Stark so much he decided to take his life’. Suicide wasn’t fucking _cute_ , it was awful and Peter had almost done it, had almost – God and he hated himself and now Mister Stark knew how terrible he was. What a failure he was. He couldn’t even die correctly…

 

“Sleeping pills.”

 

Mister Stark’s eyes closed. As if Peter had struck him across the face. Peter inhaled shakily, and tugged at his pants leg when he placed a hand over his knee and he looked over the water with tear filled eyes. His nose turned red and the under portions of his eyes went pink. Like he was exhausted and broken and Lilith lingered in his terrors, maybe more so than his own hands for once. Peter continued, “I-I-I…I just wanted to sleep. I was so tried.”

 

A pause.

 

“But then, I realized I had the option to do it forever. So I made that choice.”

 

“How did you…” Mister Stark cleared his throat because the beginning was weak, like he was in some sort of dream. But their eyes met, and he went on, sounding more like himself, sounding more confident in his question, “How did you make it?”

 

“Doctor Strange,” Peter answered, “He found me. I dunno how or why, he just did. Said he knew…I wasn’t right, you know? I was saying a lot, people knew it, people knew I was screwed up. I’m not blaming them, they just knew. I couldn’t eat, or sleep, Aunt May was begging me to take care of myself. Then I did that, he found me, they pumped my stomach and I lived in that stupid hospital for what felt like a lifetime…”

 

Peter kind of laughed, in a sadistic, self-hating sort of way, “And you know, I don’t even know if I would’ve died. Considering my metabolism, I – probably would’ve been better jumping off a building.”

 

Mister Stark looked at him. Really looked at him like he had just committed a cardinal sin. Peter flinched at his words, and immediately wanted to apologize. Mister Stark spoke too quickly though and he said, “Don’t – we’re not making that kind of joke. You got me? Whatever happened in your timeline, whatever I did…God, how did that happen? How did that happen to you?”

 

“You died,” Peter said simply, “You died…You were the best. Are the best. Everyone talked about it…constant. I couldn’t get away. I couldn’t get out of myself, Mister Stark. It was like being inside of me was – was a battleground. I was living on the rubble that was the Compound, but it was _in_ me. After they took your body, they were scrubbing me, cause they thought – they thought I was hurt…because I couldn’t breathe. They were looking for wounds that weren’t there, they carried your body off – I couldn’t stop screaming. Your face, it was…that night they sedated me, Mister Stark, and I wanted you to be there, I wanted you to say it was alright, that it was going to be okay, but I knew nothing was ever going to be the same. It was over.”

 

Peter inhaled deeply, and Mister Stark looked shocked, but words continued to tumble, “They took me to see you, your body…Before…before it was gone forever. You weren’t in there. The, the…the um…The morgue guy? He uh…he said, ‘we all lose parents’, and Happy pushed him so hard I thought…Well, anyway, I thought he was dead.”

 

_“Don’t talk to this kid like you know anything about him, you got that?”_

_The man was limp on the floor, Happy standing over him. Peter tore his eyes away to look at the neatly placed hands on Tony’s chest that was no longer rising and falling._

Peter blinked – hard and suddenly the glass shattered under his hand. Orange juice went flying and he heard Tony curse quietly as his palm was yanked open. Glass was brushed off, but there was no blood, it hadn’t broken his skin and Peter’s chest was rising and falling, not like Mister Stark’s. There was silence in his mind, like a humming, a buzzing, Peter bit down on the inside of his mouth and swallowed the formation for grief that need not be there, because Tony was alive.

 

He was gasping, then he calmed, a hand grabbed the back of his neck, and it squeezed as he was leaned forward, and Mister Stark whispered in his ear, “No matter what happens, you keep living.”

 

That was so easy in theory. Peter pulled back, looked at him incredulously. He shook his head and asked, “What if it hadn’t been you? What if it had been Miss Potts? Would you have wanted to keep living?”

 

A look flashed across Tony’s face. Peter didn’t know if he meant enough to Tony to use as an example, but he knew for sure Miss Potts did. A breath, and then, “Okay, kid…I’ll admit…that small fragment of hope that you would come back kept me going. But your timeline…I would have done anything to take your place that day, to die. And you know why? Because I would have died knowing you were here. You were alive. And I would have been okay with that.”

 

Suddenly, a voice spoke, “Hey.”

 

Both of their heads yanked to the end of the dock. Natasha was walking towards them, the sun had begun to warm their skins in the morning hours. She pointed behind her shoulder towards the house and she said, “We made breakfast. Strange thinks he should eat before we attempt the removal.”

 

The Removal.

 

It was so ominous. Like a scary story or something. But, nonetheless, the two of them rose to their feet and followed her back towards the house. Peter’s mind wandered to the conversation. The vulnerability behind it, and he regretted losing himself so openly, but he supposed it had happened and there was no undoing it. He could just hope Mister Stark wouldn’t see him differently, or more different than he already was since he wasn’t Mister Stark’s Peter.

 

As they walked, Natasha spoke, “The Compound is being set up, at least the part of it that has been repaired since the battle. Wilson and Barnes are rushing things, but until then we’re going to need to keep squatting him.”

 

“That’s fine,” Tony sighed, “Keep squatting.”

 

Not much else was exchanged. By the time they were inside, Aunt May had already made a plate of eggs and toast for him, along with a new glass of orange juice that he made sure not to break in his hand. He felt odd in Mister Stark’s home, he felt…Off. The center just wasn’t right, Strange and Banner kept coming in and out and it was obvious they were doing things elsewhere, getting ready, and Peter felt a lot like a lamb being readied for some kind of bloody slaughter. He wasn’t ready – not after what had happened with Lilith a mere several hours before. It felt extremely dizzying to be surrounded by both rogue and welcomed Avengers alike. And no one was really talking because well…how could they pretend things were normal when they were working to save a kid that had sold his soul?

 

Peter decided he didn’t deserve the sympathy or the mercy, but he kept that to himself.

 

Aunt May looked over at him, about halfway through his meal. She leaned over and she whispered softly, “Are you okay? Because if not, we can tell them we need to wait and –“

 

“No I…” Peter cut in, “Aunt May we…we gotta do it eventually.”

 

“I know, but it’s so soon.”

 

“It’s also not soon enough,” Peter replied. He tried to sound brave, but he wasn’t. So instead this weird, unconfident smile formed and he went on, “C’mon, I…I’ll be fine.”

 

She didn’t look convinced. She reached out, frowning deeply and looking incredibly upset with him but she wasn’t going to scold him, she was too loving for that. Her fingers ran through his hair, and a kiss flitted over his temple and Peter looked away because he couldn’t consider how much he was hurting her. It felt too much like the hospital, like waking up and seeing her and knowing he had broken her heart. Betrayed her in some deeply engrained way. He squirmed and allowed the affection, even if a part of him felt it was wrong.

 

Then Strange was in the doorway, clearing his throat.

 

“We’re ready.”

 

Things moved from there. Peter felt like he was in a tube. Mostly because the dangers were listed out, Aunt May wasn’t going to be allowed to be in the garage when they did the ‘thing’. Peter put on a brave face then, especially when Aunt May started cursing, getting angry, and Cap decided he could stay with her. Peter himself decided he hated what it was doing to her and he was somewhat relieved she wasn’t going to be able to watch, even if he wished so badly for the two of them to be together. For her to be able to hold his hand like when he had to get a tooth pulled in second grade. She was always there, and now she couldn’t be and he was stumbling over that notion.

 

Medical equipment was set up. Peter supposed it was the lifesaving kind.

 

Tony had to put on a suit. When Mister Stark asked why, Doctor Strange just said things could get painful and Peter felt unsuited to think about such a thing as he was told by Doctor Banner to lie down on the examination type table.

 

Natasha stood by in the corner, a walkie-talkie in hand just in case Steve needed to be called into the room for backup. Peter was unnerved by all of the eyes studying him like a bug under a microscope and for some reason he struggled to breathe past the weight in his chest. A weight that told him to panic, panic, panic – he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t bring it back around. He couldn’t hold onto it, and then the world was diving, but he held it back because he had to. He had to.

 

Peter looked up at the ceiling when he laid flat. Mister Stark appeared, the mask retracted.

 

“You’re okay.”

 

Peter nodded. He wasn’t, but if Tony was there, and his aunt was right outside…then he had to be.

 

Strange appeared next. His face was stoic, clinical, like any doctor. Peter swallowed thickly, and he thought of all those conversations in the hospital that no longer existed. Like an open wound, Peter had poured out all of those emotions onto a man he barely knew, and now Doctor Strange knew none of it, and Peter wasn’t sure what to do with that. But Peter saw just the slightest amount of softness arrive, and a voice came out…Calm.

 

“It’s going to be alright.”

 

Peter remembered the fire on the fingertips in that dark hospital room, the amazement, missing normalcy. He remembered who he was, and so his head nodded up and down.

 

_And light._

_And light._

_And light…_

Muffled.

 

The words started strong, not English, Peter didn’t know them and he didn’t care. It felt like an exorcism, sounded like one, as Strange recited those words and it was as if the light on the ceiling began to sway back and forth, and back and forth, and Peter forgot – or maybe he never knew if he was brave. Or just stupid to jump over those buildings, to be Spider-Man, to sell his soul, to leave behind everything and destroy his timeline to save Mister Stark when in actuality he hadn’t even saved him, he had destroyed that place where that was real and he had drowned it. Had damned it. Peter screamed.

 

He screamed.

 

He screamed.

 

Erupting, back arching, eyes shutting down and brain turning into an ebony home of just nothing. Peter fell deeper, into this witch elm of existence. But when Peter screamed, Lilith screamed too and he felt her pain in the marking on his chest where she had seared herself into him and owned what was both flesh and something other. He saw the world, for what it was, stars and the molecules that made it so bright. Peter erupted louder, but Lilith shouted over him, the agony of the bright crystals in the morning, Peter watched the universe erupt, and the stones were born, and Peter felt warm tears blow.

 

Hands grabbed him, metal, Peter could hardly see Tony’s face. The mask was still retracted, he was speaking, maybe trying to comfort him, maybe not but Strange was still reciting words that burned. They felt like physical things, not just sounded and Peter forfeited any sort of bubble of control he might have pretended to have in favor of agony.

 

Peter was dying.

 

Maybe he didn’t care so much anymore.

 

But Peter saw Lilith form in the corner in the midst of the screaming.

 

Then his eyes rolled back and he was gone into the universe of emptiness, pointlessness.

 

…

 

When Tony saw her, he couldn’t help it.

 

He shot a blast at her.

 

She stood in the corner of the garage and one simple wave of her hand deflected the blast, sending it into the wall and nearly taking Bruce out in the process as the doctor jumped away, breathing heavily and looking at Tony as if he was an idiot. But Tony couldn’t help it. She was standing right there, the demon that was making all of this happen, that had put a mark on the kid, that was dragging them through hell. Natasha had the walkie-talkie near her mouth, but Strange waved her down, snapping to Tony, “Are you an idiot?”

 

“Like I said,” Tony growled, not taking his eyes off of her, “We burn the bitch.”

 

She had yet to say anything, but she was breathing as if injured. She had formed in the room, from thin air, as if Strange’s attempt to remove the mark had caused physical pain. If Peter hadn’t been screaming before losing consciousness, Tony might have encouraged the torture a bit more. But hurting the boy…well, that wasn’t what he wanted. He just wanted Lilith dead, if demons could meet such fates.

 

His hands trembled. He glared, itching to reach for Peter but he stood in front of where the boy was lying instead. This was his fucking kid…well maybe not his, but God, the boy was falling apart on that dock. Tony hadn’t been there for him in that other universe, but he was there now and he could exist and he could protect him. He had to…that was just the bluntness of it. He had to protect Peter. He couldn’t let the kid suffer anymore because of him.

 

Why hadn’t he existed?

 

Lilith finally breathed, “Sorcerer…I must say…That was somewhat impressive. But futile.”

 

“Hardly,” Strange replied, raising an eyebrow and Tony didn’t know how he could keep composure when they were speaking to an actual demon from Hell, “It drew you out, did it not? And seems to have caused a bit of discomfort. I’m quite proud of myself if I’m being completely honest with you.”

 

Lilith raised her chin, she looked annoyed. Tony was glad…He was glad she was frazzled by their intervention, but then her lips curled upward and he had to fight the urge to throw another blast her way, but he looked at Bruce who seemed to be silently begging for him not to. Tony watched her chuckle, and her head tilted, “It is futile because the boy will come willingly…eventually. All souls see what I have to show them, and they understand. Peter will be no different. You will not remove the mark.”

 

“Wanna bet?” Tony growled.

 

She looked at Tony and hummed, “No need. He really will make a wonder gift to my collection. So bright and kind and innocent. Yet…torn and perplexed. I can feel so many pieces of you in him, Stark. Oh, the good pieces. Untainted ones. I’m fortunate I got to him when I did, before you could completely ruin him with all of your ‘plans’ for his future. Have you any idea what becoming a part of that business does to a person’s soul? It would make him a shell of a human being, hard and cold, willing to do what must be done for a stone company. I’m really doing him a favor…”

 

She paused, then…

 

“I’m saving him from you and your shadow. It’s so sad no one did that for you with your own father.”

 

Tony didn’t even realize he had shot another blast at her, until his ears were ringing and she was disappearing. Bruce let out a loud curse, shouting at Tony as if he had lost his mind, but Tony was gasping, eyes wild and hair crazed on his forehead as he took in the words, allowed them to fester so quickly, and he had to fight the urge to start shooting around the room.

 

“Where is she?” Natasha questioned.

 

“Gone,” Strange growled, looking at Tony, “I was going to attempt to speak with her. Maybe get more information on how we can get this thing off, but I guess that’s just not in the cards. Second option is Wong, though I don’t know how much he knows other than me and – “

 

“Shut up!” Tony shouted, and Bruce pushed him aside to get to Peter, beginning to feel the boy’s pulse on his wrist. Tony pointed at Strange, “You said this was a removal!”

 

“It was an attempt. Obviously, it only pained Lilith enough to bring her here, but it wasn’t enough to get the mark off. I think we’re on the right path though, if we just try another approach – “

 

“Did you not hear Peter screaming bloody murder?” Tony replied, “Did you not hear that? Was that just me? And you want to do that again? For what, the same fucking result?”

 

Tony’s brain was erupting. Fire was forming, and he didn’t know why he was so angry. Maybe Lilith’s words had been allowed to dig too deeply into his bones, because he was almost uneasy on his feet as he stood there looking into Strange’s face with absolute rage. His mind tried to catch up as Bruce was speaking to Peter’s unconscious form, shining a flashlight in the boy’s face, shaking his shoulders. His heart was racing, and the heart monitor was beeping, meaning Peter was alive but –

 

His face, it was so pale there, lying…And Tony thought: the gauntlet. The flash, Peter falling over and burning, the smell of flesh and crawling up and up and up. Tony thought Peter was dead and then he wasn’t and there were so many questions. Peter was going to die again, Tony had just gotten him back and he was going to fucking _die_.

 

There was no hope in that.

 

Just the sovereign feeling of being confused and alone and losing a piece of the future that he thought he had with the kid.

 

He was sorry. Tony had just thought…Well he had thought they would have more time.

 

But those memories shattered apart when Peter’s eyes snapped open. When he was staring at the ceiling as if all the pain in the world had been placed across his chest and he could hardly breathe. Peter inhaled deeply, grabbing up towards his neck and Bruce took his wrist tightly and shushed, comforting. Strange watched on, stepping back, giving Peter room but Tony came forward and a part of him still feared Peter was terrified, like he had been when he had woken from Lilith’s claws, dragged out by Strange himself.

 

There was this opportunity for something and then nothing.

 

Tony leaned over him and whispered, “It’s alright, kid. It’s alright.”

 

Peter though said nothing. He just stared up, and Tony’s eyes were meeting his and then the kid’s were filling to the brim. But he said nothing, he didn’t truly cry. He just stared into the distance as if he was processing what had just occurred. It was so fast and so brief and Tony had scared her off and it was his fault but he…he couldn’t stand it – Lilith – God he…

 

Without warning, Peter started to sit up. He didn’t ask questions and Tony put a metal hand on Peter’s back to assist him. Peter was trembling, looking at the corner of the room with wide eyes, blinking very hard as if he expected Lilith to appear again but she never did. Peter sat, shivering, shaking and breathing heavily. Bruce asked, “Peter? Can you hear me?”

 

His head nodded. Then he looked at Strange.

 

“Please…don’t make me do that again.”

 

Strange stared. He just stared and maybe deep down Tony knew well…they probably had to. But Peter whirled in his direction – Peter’s face was desperate.

 

“Please don’t make me do that again.”

 

The kid knew the mark was not gone. Tony could see the despair. Peter wasn’t crying, but his eyes were insisting compliance.

 

What could he say?

 

_What could he say?_

 

…

 

Peter laid there…on the fenced in back porch, the bugs unable to reach him past the screen.

 

The couch wasn’t the comfiest in the whole lake house, but it was a way to escape the prying eyes of the adults as they consulted on what to do next. Maybe his pleading had fallen on deaf ears, but they were making plans for another attempt, this time involving Wong and the Compound somehow, if they could get things fixed up in time. Something bigger was going on that he didn’t quite understand, but for the time being…well, the rest of the day, he was so drained he could hardly move and he wasn’t going to question too much.

 

Every muscle inside of him was screaming. Like he had run until collapsing.

 

He stared, unable to see over the railing of the screen. Just the wood and the tiny sugar ants that were crawling by, not bothering him. Peter remembered the man who could become small like an ant, how nice he had been, how he had been patient with all of Peter’s screaming and crying. A lot had been going on, Peter hated himself for the emotional outbursts and so he swallowed them in his memories and pretended they hadn’t happened. Like the one earlier in the garage.

 

Peter didn’t like begging. He had begged to die, after all.

 

Had begged Mister Stark not to go.

 

But there he had gone anyway and Peter inhaled, sinking further into the pillow until he heard the back door open. He turned and Natasha was standing there, holding a steaming cup, much like the coffee Tony had been carrying earlier that morning. Her expression was unreadable, as it usually was and she approached slowly where he was sitting.

 

“Tea?”

 

Peter blinked. Never in his wildest dreams could he have imagine Black Widow bringing him tea. Peter pushed himself up on his elbows, and sat, giving her room to approach and sit beside him on the couch. He took the cup in shaky hands and he didn’t even know if he liked tea but he wasn’t going to resist any gifts from Natasha Romanoff. He felt awkwardness, but she didn’t look awkward. She looked like herself, sitting there, hands folded and face strong. But underneath he could see something else. An exhaustion under her eyes and grief forming around her irises like a secret.

 

“How are you feeling?” She asked, “Stark is…uptight right now, which can only mean he’s worried. About you, of course. But he can hardly keep it together so I think he’s worried about approaching you.”

 

She was blunt with her words. She didn’t try to avoid the truth. Tony was upset. Peter was the source. Somehow that was better than a comforting lie. Peter raised the drink to his lips and he didn’t like it, and it was hot, but somehow the burning was comforting. Peter lowered it and breathed out, “I’m…tired.”

 

“I would be surprised if you weren’t, considering you were basically tortured today.”

 

She paused. Maybe she was easier to read than Peter thought, because there were words on her lips. He could see them. Peter bit down on his lower lip, feeling a bit anxious because he worried he had read her wrong. He questioned…slow and steady, “You…you wanna ask something, don’t you?”

 

Natasha looked at him, her head nodded.

 

“What happened to me?”

 

He knew it was coming, but it punched just like the question Mister Stark had asked about his attempt. Peter shifted, and cleared his throat, unsure if he too should be blunt or not in his response…whether or not she would appreciate it. He tried, “You…died. I don’t know everything, but from what I heard, you both tried to sacrifice yourselves – you and Hawkeye. And he...lost. You ‘won’. You died.”

 

She breathed out, stricken. There were no tears. There was no crying. She looked almost annoyed as she looked away and whispered, “I wish that were true here.”

 

“That’s a dangerous wish,” Peter insisted, appearing almost horrified, “Trust me. It’s dangerous.”

 

The sound of the ducks on the pond was the only thing they heard for a few moments as they sat in a perplexing silence. It was a wave, over Peter’s head as he watched her face. Maybe there were threats of tears, but she swallowed them back, he could see her struggling to do so. They were thick gulps and Peter was sorry. He thought maybe he shouldn’t have told, but it was like he had to. He had to let her know…It was just…He couldn’t lie, not anymore, there had been so many lies.

 

She breathed, looking at the animals gliding on the water…

 

“I visit his family,” She whispered, “They’re doing okay. Not the best, but okay. I started a rehabilitation program in his name. We have a lot of participants, but I just…I wish…”

 

“He was there,” Peter provided, “I know.”

 

He did know. Peter hoped she knew that.

 

She inhaled, rubbing a hand under his nose as if to fight the emotion down. She shifted on the couch, turning to look into his eyes. Peter saw the tears get pushed away in favor of a small smirk, and then the subject disappeared into something that made Peter feel a bit lighter…

 

“So…Wilson and Barnes babysat you? Sounds like a complete ordeal.”

 

Peter smiled.

 

“At first. But they did a pretty good job.”


	13. Calm Waters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter paused before they reentered the room Aunt May was sleeping inside of, “Mister Stark?”
> 
> “Hm?”
> 
> Peter inhaled, then asked, “Do you know how my uncle died?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a bit of a filller chapter. Ugh, I hate popping those out, but the next chapter is kinda intense so I guess enjoy the lull. 😁

_Ben, inbetween the aisles, hair tossed from the wind and rain outside._

_Peter felt cold. Ben’s jacket was pulled tightly around him, the Snickers bar tucked between his hands as they stood in line. Maybe fourteen was too old, too old to ask for such things, Peter felt he should have been treated like an adult by now. His hands were shaking, Uncle Ben had Tylenol held in his own fingers, shaking the box quietly. The woman in front of them was arguing about coupons, and she smelled like dog, her black coat covered in rain drops and white animal hair. Peter looked over at Ben, he had just reached the man’s shoulder recently in height. It was funny, staring at him from there._

_“Feeling okay?” Uncle Ben asked._

_Peter nodded. Snickers, Tylenol, Peter had been sick – ever since their trip to Oscorp, ever since…Anyway, he ignored those things. The way the world sounded and Peter would wake in cold sweats. He swallowed, his throat was scratchy, the Snickers had been Uncle Ben’s suggestion, but Peter had gone along with it. He just wanted something, anything that would make him feel better._

_“Maybe we’ll go to the doctor tomorrow.”_

_Peter shook his head, blinking, “No uh…Aunt May still makes me see Doctor Price._

_“What’s wrong with Doctor Price?”_

_“He’s a pediatrician,” Peter argued, sounding irritated. He had been on edge, everything was too loud, too much, the rain was hitting the window. Aunt May was on a night shift, and Uncle Ben didn’t want to leave him alone because the apartment next door had been broken into a week before. Uncle Ben looked at him, at his tone, it was weird, Peter didn’t usually sound so upset, but God, it was a lot. Everything was eleven and his head was pounding and –_

_An arm wrapped around his shoulder, a hand looping to rest on top of his head to push it down in a side hug. Peter felt on the verge of tears, he wished he could tell his uncle. It wasn’t because Price was a pediatrician, it was because he was weird now. The way he was – Peter was like those people they talked about on television, the ones people protested against, the ones people were always angry about, the ones that got sent to that school…_

_Chapped lips pressed to the crown his head and Uncle Ben relented, “Okay…but if the fever goes up any, we gotta go.”_

_Peter flinched when the bell above the door rang, but he didn’t bother to turn and look. He wished he had._

_Tylenol, snickers, dog hair, rain drops, bell._

_Tylenol, snickers, dog hair, rain drops, bell._

_Tylenol, snickers, dog hair, rain drops, bell._

_Gunshot._

_Ben, thudding, eyes wide._

_Peter’s hands smelled like copper when he held Uncle Ben’s – the Tylenol box hit the ground, it slid away, the Snickers crushed under Peter’s hand, the woman, the dog hair, was screaming. Peter felt warm tears track – silently. They went and went and went._

_Ben’s mouth opened, but Lilith’s voice erupted on the standstill moment: he knew it was her. It was her smooth, silky, a lie of kindness._

_“It’s all meaningless, isn’t it? You couldn’t save him.”_

_Fluttering. Tylenol. Snickers. Dog hair. Rain drops. Bell._

_Tony. Charred. Burned hair. Glowing, undone._

_Tony. Charred. Burned hair. Glowing, undone._

_Peter’s hand, and the white pills garish against the bathroom lighting, the mirror, his eyes were bloodshot, pink at the edges, his nose clogged. He breathed – wide out of his mouth, his chest heaved, he tilted back. Chalky. Peter gagged, but swallowed. Swallow – Bell._

_Gunshot._

_Bell._

_Flash, stones, colors._

_“I am Iron Man.”_

_“It’s alright, Peter. Don’t be afraid.”_

_“I am Iron Man.”_

_“Mister Stark…I don’t feel so good.”_

_“I’m sorry.”_

_“Uncle Ben, I’m sorry.”_

_Tylenol. Snickers. Dog hair. Raindrops. Bell._

_Snickers. Charred hair. Gunshot. Undone._

Peter gasped, and for one inner moment, within his ribcage, he nearly exploded into a scream until he clamped a hand over his own mouth. Peter breathed, chest rising and falling rapidly and skin coated with a sheen jacket of sweat. His throat clogged with tears, and he looked over in the quiet, night of the room. Moonlight poured from the window and he blinked several times towards the person next to him. Aunt May, lying there, sleeping…Her eyes shut and her face peaceful, just a few inches away on the bed. Her glasses were still on she must have fallen asleep with them on. Peter kept his hand over his mouth as he rolled over and pressed himself off the bed to stand.

 

His hands met his knees, and he leaned over, taking air in through his nose and out through his mouth. It took several moments to gather where he was, that Aunt May was there and that he needed to shut up if he was going to prevent waking her up. When he turned to look back her, she was unmoving, her eyes hadn’t opened yet and Peter felt relieved for that at least.

 

He slipped into the adjoining bathroom, shutting the door softly behind himself. Water splashed, cold on his face, washing the unshed tears away before they could fall. He ignored his reflection – he remembered that night too vividly, in all of its chalkiness to look into the mirror and not see that horror of what he had done. To not know that he had done something so terrible and Peter swallowed, gulped down, and left the bathroom, shutting the light off.

 

Quietly, he tiptoed around the bed to the door, leaving as silently as he could. He left the door ajar a bit, mouth dry as he went towards the open kitchen not too far from the guest room. Peter had vaguely learned where things were and it had only taken him checking a few places to find the glasses…He paused, reaching up into the cabinet, his eye caught in the corner by a nearby picture frame that made his heart skip a beat.

 

Peter and Tony…Holding a certificate…Smiling.

 

Peter stared. He stared a long time, hand above his head on the cabinet before he reached out and plucked the frame from the shelf. Slowly, he brought it close to his face, blinking down at it, and God, he wished he could know whose memories were floating in his head. His memories, or Other Peter’s. Maybe his dream hadn’t even been Uncle Ben’s death, but a different Ben’s and Peter was slowly fading into things he didn’t know, he couldn’t realize.

 

_“C’mon boys, smile,” Miss Potts ordered. Aunt May was holding the camera, grinning widely but Miss Potts was glaring at Mister Stark, “Tony, smile.”_

_Mister Stark rolled his eyes, “Smiling makes it uncool.”_

_“Almost as uncool as that shirt you’re wearing,” Peter cackled._

_“Well…Now I’m definitely not smiling.”_

Peter blinked rapidly, putting the picture back on the shelf. His heart clenched at the memory, the memory from before everything had happened and sometimes it was halting to know they had been gone for five years. Five years…just dust. Peter turned back towards the cabinet, about to reach back up and continue his mission to find a glass but once more it was interrupted, this time by a voice out on the porch, near the door at the edge of the counter…

 

Mister Stark’s voice asked, “How are things there? Everything under control?”

 

There was a pause, Peter supposed he must have been on the phone as he inched closer, head low as he tried to pick up on what was being said…

 

“Yeah well…we haven’t lived in the city in a long time. Was bound to feel a little weird.”

 

There was a deep sigh on Mister Stark’s part. He sounded so tired and Peter was sorry for it. He didn’t know if he was the cause, he didn’t know who the cause was. But he held onto the corner of the counter and tried to bury a guilt that he probably shouldn’t have been feeling.

 

“I love you too…I’ll call again when I can.”

 

Peter jumped away from the door when it opened suddenly. Tony came around the corner and their eyes met, not standoffish, but in this awkward realization. Mister Stark slowly slipped his phone in his pocket, eyeing Peter in a way Aunt May used to do when he was about to be scolded for something. Maybe not viciously, but enough to make him take a step back and move towards the cabinet that held the glasses for yet a third time since waking in his bedroom.

 

Not his bedroom, but this had all become so disorienting, he wasn’t sure where he was anymore.

 

“Well…” Tony hummed, both hands now in his pockets as he leaned against the edge of the counter, thankfully allowing Peter his space, “Fancy meeting you here, hm? Considering it’s three in the morning and that’s usually the time little spiders should be in bed.”

 

Little spiders. Peter dwelled on it a few moments, when he glanced over and over again at Mister Stark. His head flitted to the ground and he shrugged his shoulders, finally getting the glass and beginning to fill it with water before he found words, “Got thirsty…you know…Sometimes…little spiders get thirsty.”

 

Tony looked disbelieving, but Peter silenced himself by beginning to gulp the water down. There was an awkward silence exchanged as Tony looked down at the ground and he asked, “Is that all? Really?”

 

The push was gentle, but unfaltering. Peter finished the water, taking in a huge intake of air. His lungs expanded, he could think a little clearer. Maybe he really was just thirsty. His mouth no longer tasted like the chalky pills, like the dream, it didn’t smell like gunpowder and copper blood under his fingernails that he had to scrape off that night in the hospital bathroom when his face had been red and splotchy. No charred hair or burned skin, or whatever – and Peter shook his head.

 

“That’s all,” Peter replied, “But uh…were you calling Pepper at three in the morning?”

 

“I do that sometimes. It’s allowed when you’re married.”

 

Peter wanted to scoff. But he didn’t. If he was lying, he supposed Mister Stark could too about why he was awake. So he just shifted a bit on his two feet, looking around the kitchen, taking in the room around him. He wanted to ask more, to see if things were okay, whether it be with himself or Mister Stark because he was drowning – he wanted to say it. He wanted to say what he had dreamed about but even he didn’t completely understand it. He didn’t know what it had been, it had just been a whole lot of snapshots all put together and Lilith’s voice had left tire marks on his skull.

 

“You know,” Peter whispered in his lie, “I’m really enjoying this lake house adventure. But when is Strange going to come back with Wong so we can go to the Compound?”

 

Maybe a change of scenery would help. The lake house was the funeral, it was the upset, it was the heart wrenching moment of watching Tony Stark’s heart drift into the water and into nothing. The shop, being torn apart for their first try at removing the mark…Everything. Peter was vaguely aware of all of it, and he hated it, and accepted it. So he breathed, waited for Mister Stark to reply and the man looked lost, sometimes, kind of how he did on the dock when Peter was describing the pills and all of the broken things.

 

“Soon,” Tony answered, “We’re hoping in the morning…Well, later than now.”

 

Mister Stark then stepped forward and held out a hand, “C’mon, you need to sleep.”

 

An arm wrapped around his shoulder when he approached. It felt like the memory, of Ben, of being pulled close and Peter cringed at the thought of a bell ringing, a gunshot, dog hair, something…Something that did not exist. But it had been real, he knew it, he just didn’t know if it was his, other Peter’s, or both. Peter paused before they reentered the room Aunt May was sleeping inside of, “Mister Stark?”

 

“Hm?”

 

Peter inhaled, then asked, “Do you know how my uncle died?”

 

Mister Stark turned, looking like he had been taken off guard. The man glanced at the ajar door, before pulling Peter back a little bit, and studying him. As if he was worried Aunt May would wake from her sleep and risk her hearing such a conversation. Mister Stark chewed on it, before he returned with a question of his own, “Why?”

 

“I just…I wanna know.”

 

Mister Stark’s eyes narrowed, no suspiciously, but it looked a lot like when Peter had come back, when he had been alive, when he had been rambling and Mister Stark had been listening. Or maybe ignoring, Peter didn’t know, the shock of them all returning was probably heavily set in a painful tone, shrouded by happiness and battle. Mister Stark exhaled, slowly, slowly, slowly…

 

“I think he…he was shot. But I wasn’t there, Pete, I only know what I’ve…read.”

 

Then…then that part of the memory was other Peter’s.

 

“Why?” Mister Stark repeated.

 

Peter could not say why.

 

He just hated he had done this. Had overrun the body of someone willing to die for everyone.

 

…

 

_“Give me the file on Ben Parker, Friday.”_

_“File boss? I don’t see anything in our database…”_

_“The police report, I mean. Benjamin F. Parker, died in…I believe it would have been early 2016. January, February, something like that.”_

_Friday hesitated. Tony stopped twiddling with the things on his desk and he glanced up at the ceiling. His sling was beside him on the workbench, Siberia lingered with the pain in his shoulder, but he ignored it. It had been two weeks, two weeks and he had been locked in his shop. There had been very few words to anyone, besides Rhodey who he checked in on regularly. Pepper had called a few times, her softness was not to be taken advantage of, he still loved her, but he didn’t know if she loved him. So that was that._

_“Is there a problem?” He asked the ceiling._

_“Boss I believe that it is considered a bit invasive to look into the file of a deceased family member or friend of someone you know. You told me to remind you that such invasiveness can cause great strain on relationships, particularly after the incident with Miss Potts –“_

_“Okay,” Tony held up a hand, “Okay, okay, well. I’m overriding that decision. Pull up the file.”_

_More quiet. Tony thought he was about to have to threaten the system. The kid had been calling Happy nonstop since returning from Germany. Driving the head of security up the walls. Tony had been allowing it, had been listening to the messages. But one recently had caught his attention. One Peter had sent Happy that made him stop for a moment, and think back to the things he had read about the boy – wondering._

_“Uh…yeah…hey Happy. Just checkin’ in, still waiting for that next assignment. Just wanted to let you know uh – if something uh – big happens this week, well, I might be a little busy just…And don’t think I don’t wanna do a mission! I totally do but uh…Just some family stuff. My aunt really needs me home with her, she’s kinda been down in the dumps. Anyways…Anyways, yeah, so I’ll still be waiting but if I don’t answer please just, don’t forget I can help.”_

_Tony supposed ‘down in the dumps’ hadn’t been totally serious. He had monitored May Parker, she was still clocking into work. Another invasive activity just to make sure – to make sure everyone was alive and well. Tony didn’t know why, it was none of his business. None of it was his business and yet he had inserted himself into this kid’s life and personal drama. Before Tony could open his mouth and argue with Friday once more, her voice began to read._

_“ Case Number: 3304054_

_ Date: January 26th, 2016_

_ Reporting Officer: Brett Mahoney_

_ Details of Event: On Tuesday afternoon, approx. 9:00 P.M. nephew of the victim, a_

_minor, Peter Benjamin Parker recounts that they entered Griffin’s Pharmacy to_

_purchase Tylenol for a mild fever. Upon entering, Parker says he and his uncle retrieved_

_the medications and went to the check out line where another customer (Annette Denver)_

_was ‘arguing’ with the cashier/pharmacy owner. Parker believes he, his uncle, Denver,_

_and the cashier were the only people in the store at this time. Parker recalls hearing the_

_bell above the door signal someone else had entered. Parker claims this is where his_

_memory becomes disoriented, as the suspect, a man approx. 6’0, 200lbs approached the_

_counter and demanded money. The cashier abided by these demands and Denver gave_

_her wallet over when the suspect then turned on her. Parker does not recall the exact_

_words exchanged between his uncle, Benjamin F. Parker, and the suspect, but only that_

_he heard the gunshot and his uncle fell to the ground, wounded. The suspect then fled.”_

_Friday stopped. Tony licked his lips, staring down at his wires and screws and bolts. Suddenly he felt a sinking in the pit of his stomach. Tony sat up straight, trying to chase the glassiness from his eyes as he scratched the bottom of his face. Friday asked, “Would you like me to repeat?”_

_“No,” Tony spoke sharper than he intended before he took a deep breath, “No…No, Friday. Um…Did the kid get any treatment after this? Psychological?”_

_“Boss, there are certain systems in place to protect ones’ medical records.”_

_“Override,” Tony ordered, “Did he get help?”_

_Another silence, then, “It appears he received a month of therapy, spanning from a week after the incident, to the end of February. His doctor noted he refused anymore visits after this, and that at the time of the boy leaving, he was experiencing symptoms of PTSD. Night terrors, aversion to certain areas of the city and situations –”_

_Tony sniffed, “Got it. Right.”_

_Tony knew that swallowing feeling. He had felt it dozens of times._

_“Don’t let me do that again, Friday,” Tony ordered, but he knew it was empty, “Don’t let me spy on the kid again.”_

Tony didn’t have access to this Peter’s medical files.

 

Because Peter had tried to die in a whole different universe.

 

It was a wide precipice to wrap his mind around. To get his feelings across to. So he held it, and mused over it. He would have broken those rules had he the option. Mostly because he was struggling to come to terms with the things Peter had told him on the dock. He was struggling to adjust to the fact that he had been a part of that feeling Peter had experienced. The emptiness and the loneliness and not understanding why.

 

Tony almost hated himself in that other timeline for leaving Peter alone. For leaving him and for causing this cruel shift in reality, but then he remembered it was to save the kid, and he was left stumbling, wondering why something that was meant to be good, something that was meant to be heroic – could cause such catastrophe. Could leave the kid flailing so much. If the other timeline could open up, if it could welcome them, he would find out. He would ask why.

 

He sat in the kitchen, water, glass. Not drinking just holding. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep again, and the sun was rising over in a distance too far for him to really imagine. Morning was coming, inviting. It was just them in the house, Strange going to find Wong for backup and Natasha, Bruce, and Steve going to check on progress at the Compound. Readying things for them, readying for the Big Show as Tony had come to see it as. Lilith, unyielding after their attempt to remove the mark.

 

Tony wanted to understand, but he couldn’t.

 

When he heard the door to the guest bedroom open and close softly, he thought he was about to have to scold the kid for not sleeping. But when he turned around on the stool, May Parker was standing there. She was blinking against the lighting in the kitchen, her hair a mess on her head. Her eyes glanced briefly to the coffee pot in the corner and she gestured to it and asked, “May I?”

 

“Have at it,” Tony answered.

 

She moved almost mechanically, using the jar of coffee and finding the filters above in the cabinet. Like she had done it a million times before and maybe they shared more than just Peter in common. She looked over her shoulder, and she nodded her head at his water, “Not a coffee day?”

 

“It’s always a coffee day,” Tony answered, “Sometimes the kidneys need nourishment too. Pepper’s rules, not mine. I think technically, coffee has plenty of water in it to keep a person alive. But I’ve found arguing to be futile and the sofa really isn’t all that comfy…”

 

Tony paused, May had only hummed, and turned back around. He took a sip from his glass, trying to find words, but there was an odd knot in the back of his throat. Like it was hard to speak to her. As if some kind of barrier existed. Part of him wished he could speak more, but about what…He wasn’t sure. The coffee brewed quietly, May stood over the pot, her hand on the counter, her back turned. Tony glanced towards the bedroom, and he asked, “Was he sleeping?”

 

“From what I could tell,” May answered, her head down and not looking, “Breathing deep and all that. I was surprised honestly.”

 

Tony teetered. It was between telling her Peter had woken up at some point, had asked about Ben, had questioned those things – or letting it alone. Keeping it between them. But it seemed almost unfair to do so. May had been sharing information with him from day one, she didn’t have to let him be in Peter’s life while he laid in that hospital bed. She had let him in and he felt…hoped he could offer her the same decency.

 

Tony tapped the side of the glass.

 

“He woke up earlier.”

 

May turned and blinked, “What?”

 

“He woke up earlier, I sent him back to bed,” Tony replied, sighing, “I don’t know if he had a nightmare or something but – he asked…”

 

Tony ground his teeth together. He wondered if this was wrong, telling, giving up the information as if it was a secret, but he was unsure. It drifted, but then Tony decided he should say it, even if nothing came of it, “He asked how his uncle died.”

 

May’s face was…Hard to understand. There was surprise, but there was also something else he could not recognize. She looked at Tony a long time, her eyes pained. That was vivid, the pain underneath some unknown memory that he could not reach within her. Tony wasn’t sure if he wanted to invade that way anyway, he was already stepping over so many boundaries. She looked at the coffee pot, then at him and she cleared her throat, “Did he…did he say why?”

 

“No,” Tony sounded solemn, “But he seemed confused.”

 

She leaned back into the counter, “What’d you tell him?”

 

“Told him what I knew…that I thought he had been shot,” Tony explained, and he swore she flinched at the word, “At least that was what I was pretty sure happened.”

 

Not that he would admit to having Friday read him the file.

 

She bit down on her lip, cleared her throat and nodded, “Yeah uh, yeah, just a robbery. Happened at the pharmacy, I think – I think Peter had been sick or something at the time and so they went to get Tylenol. It’s almost so vivid, the text message I sent to him telling him and…Ben just said ‘alrighty’.”

 

May looked at Tony, with a perplexed expression.

 

“You always think your last words to someone are going to be ‘I love you’ or ‘I hate you’…But his were just…’alrighty’.”

 

Her eyes got glassy, but the coffee pot beeped and she turned away. Tony averted his eyes to the counter top. He wanted to offer something, a memory of his last moments with his mother and father, but he didn’t think he could, which meant she must have been far stronger than he ever was. Because that knot in his throat had closed. He put his fingers over his lips and he imagined a gunshot firing, Peter looking frightened. Tony wished Peter never had to see such a thing. But he supposed now he had endured even worse.

 

May poured two mugs, unprompted. Tony was handed one and he finally removed his fingers from his lips and stop trying to kiss away pain in a phantom limb.

 

“You know, I almost prefer those scars on his arm,” She gripped the mug, steam rising from it in a grey cloud, “The Lichtenberg Figures…The scars Ben left behind, the scars that you…apparently left behind. I can’t see those. But that snap, I can see that. It’s just – he remembers these things you know? And I forget…I forget he’s not who I raised.”

 

“He’s still Peter,” Tony replied, maybe sounding harsh, “He’s still our Peter.”

 

She scoffed, “I know that. I know that, and I love him just as fiercely as I did before I knew. I’m just saying, this is a different Peter with different memories. Different outcomes. I want to help him, but how can I when I don’t know what he went through?”

 

That…was a valid question.

 

Tony looked down.

 

May laughed, though it was weak…

 

“Our Peter,” She echoed.

 

He lifted his eyes. Nothing came to his face. A blank look: _You should know._

 

“Don’t worry. He loves you too,” She stated to his silence.

 

Before he could respond a gold hue filled the room. Both turned towards it, and forming in the corner of the kitchen was a circle, surrounded by yellow sparks and orange veins. Tony knew what it was, he knew what it meant, and deep down he cherished that dark moment in the early morning with the smell of coffee in the kitchen because he knew things were about to go bleak again. More trying to remove the mark, more pain, more looking into the kid’s face and knowing what was to come – while simultaneously being perpetually lost in what was happening.

 

Strange and Wong stepped through. Last time he had seen Wong, the man had been lying at the bottom of some steps. Something was both funny and disturbing about that day and Tony wondered briefly how Ned Leeds was doing. Tony hadn’t checked in, hadn’t offered any updates on Peter. Maybe May was keeping up with that, he imagined Ned probably had access to her contact information if he and Peter had been friends for as long as Tony assumed. Rhodey had known how to contact Maria, but not Howard. Never Howard.

 

Silent stares were exchanged. Hesitance, on Tony’s part.

 

May gripped the mug, Tony watched her knuckles turn white and it was like a moment in the movies when pain strung through cords of music in the background. Then her voice, shrouded in the amber melting from the light clawing in the window above the sink, close to where he had sprayed that water, had seen the picture frame, had decided to do something. Had he done that in Peter’s universe? Had he been brave?

 

Had he been stupid?

 

“Is it time?” May sounded like she didn’t want it to be true.

 

Strange hesitated, then said, “We should go as soon as possible. The longer we wait the more time Lilith has to gain her strength back. The Compound is prepared, Rogers, Banner, and Romanoff are finished setting up the wing that has been rebuilt. They’ll be expecting us.”

 

Wings. Constant rebuilding. Lives and rubble, and so many other things. Tony slid from his seat, looking at May and there was this silent understanding. He hesitated, and May set her mug down, going around him to go wake Peter. Right. Tony casted a glance towards Strange and Wong, and Tony questioned, “How is this going to be any different than last time?”

 

Strange answered, “This time there are two of us. More power.”

 

“More power,” Tony echoed, “And you think it’s going to save him? Remove the mark? Then what? He’s still…he’s misplaced.”

 

Strange glanced at Wong, then, “No offense, Stark, but I think the boy’s emotional state is the least of our worries at the moment. Right now, I’m more concerned with making sure he doesn’t end up in Lilith’s collection.”

 

 A collection. That would mean there were more like Peter. More taken and stolen and locked away. Tony almost sighed, but instead ran a tired hand through his hair, looking from the two men who seemed to know more about this and he knew they did, but he didn’t like it. If he could study up on the information he would, but he didn’t exactly have the access that the two of them had to books and scripts and such. There were foot steps, hinges squeaking and they all looked to see May exiting the room, her arm around Peter’s shoulders.

 

Peter’s eyes were squinted, even in the dim lighting. But Tony could see underneath he wanted nothing more than to crawl back into bed and hide. He wondered how May had gotten him up, had gotten him to move, when the kid clearly didn’t want to try again to remove the mark after last time in the shop. But Peter wasn’t struggling, he was coming along, like what was expected of him, his face downward.

 

“Morning, kid,” Tony greeted, trying to sound at least remotely upbeat.

 

But the response was more of a hum, “Morning.”

 

Gentle. Gentle, kindness, be there and exist. That was what he wanted to be for the boy whose aunt was tussling his hair. But there was this distance, he could not pass because Tony hated himself for breaking someone so young. Tony had broken him in his universe, had brought him to a world of suffering that was indescribable. Had left him alone, and maybe not alone, but Peter had felt lonely enough to see those pills. He was sure the memories of the battle didn’t help – maybe it was too close to war. To PTSD. Children shouldn’t be soldiers. Peter had been brought to that fight, and Tony glanced at Strange, underlying blame there. Maybe he shouldn’t blame Strange, but pieces of him did. Fragments. That Strange and Other Strange, all of the Stranges.

 

They didn’t have Peter change from his pajamas. In fact they packed nothing. Strange opened the portal after they had finished their coffee and all five of them stepped through, appearing within the Compound instantaneously. Saving a drive, gas, contemplation. It would be too much silence, too much sitting and knowing what lay ahead. That instantaneous traveling saved them at least a fragment of that fear. A fragment of that worry and horror. They bounced across…Gone.

 

…

 

Peter went through that portal willingly.

 

He arrived at the Compound willingly.

 

And yet it felt like someone had yanked his teeth from his mouth.

 

The hallways were long and silent. Upon their arrival, he had seemingly been abandoned as the adults had gone to set up from what was to be the worst attempt at removing the mark, to date. He knew, he knew, he knew because Wong was there and there was some kind of subconscious, that frightened him, that told him to run. But he turned his back on it. It had to be ignored in favor of survival. And survival meant the removal had to be completed.

 

Walls smelled of fresh paint and it was strong enough to cause a headache at the base of his skull. He frowned into it, sliding down a wall and pulling his knees to his chest. The hall was dark, save for the light shining through windows and hinting at freedom while the sound of tools in the distance reminded him this was where death had come. Had stung them, at least in his universe. There were conflicting memories now, of what happened on those grounds. It felt important somehow that he take that into account.

 

Here, he had been the one to put on the gauntlet.

 

There would be no memorial.

 

He chewed his fingernails raw. Welcomed the unfaltering anxiety. For him, it was extreme knowledge and faltering complaints. Knowing this pain would only intensify, and he wanted to trust the adults around him but that untrustworthy voice kept saying this was dangerous. This was deadly. This was not what he wanted. But it was what he had, because of his own decision. His own mistake.

 

Peter jumped when a shadow crossed the path. From one room in the hallway to another, then he heard the rumbling of voices. He couldn’t hear the words, but the tone sounded frustrated, angry, and Peter slid back up the wall, pushing down the dim floor and walls towards the sounds. A door was open, shining light inside, and Peter got closer, slowly zeroing in on the conversation occurring a few feet away…

 

“You took it,” A familiar voice snapped.

 

“I didn’t, dumbass,” Another voice, also familiar, huffed, “Listen, I know you spent some time with the goats and stuff, you’re not super used to having a roommate, but let’s get one thing clear: I would never steal any of your shirts. Period. You don’t have the same style as me, no offense, I don’t walk around lookin’ like a wanna-be white Jesus.”

 

Ah. Peter knew the voices.

 

There was scuffling, the sound of something opening, and the other voice, Peter had pinpointed it to be none other than Bucky Barnes, sounding triumphant and irritated, “Then why’s it in your clothes?”

 

“Don’t dig through my stuff!”

 

“It’s my shirt!”

 

“Hey, hey get off –“

 

Sam Wilson grunted as he was suddenly pushed out the door. Peter stepped away, eyes widening, as he stumbled to gain his footing. Peter watched another shadow follow, this time Bucky into the hallway. Both paused, blinking in surprise and Bucky stopped whatever advancement he was making on Sam to look over at Peter, who looked like an owl. Truthfully, he had seen many of these arguments. But this was different, pieces of him knew these weren’t his Sam and Bucky. These two didn’t know Peter Parker – sixteen-year-old recovering from an attempt on his life in the ruins of the Compound.

 

He was Peter Parker, boy who had been in a coma, who had woken up, who wore the mark of Lilith.

 

“Oh shit,” Sam said, “Company arrived.”

 

Bucky echoed, looking at Peter, eyes not removing themselves, “Company. Right. Steve said we’d have ‘company’.”

 

Sam looked at him with a exhausted expression, “Don’t be creepy. Kid, I’m sorry, he’s not always this weird, he’s just upset that someone has the same shirt as him.”

 

Peter didn’t know why. He didn’t know why his eyes started to burn. Why they started to water so profusely. But it formed, welled, and stayed a few moments and suddenly Bucky looked completely horrified and Sam did as well. Just in the slightest though. They glanced at one another, but Peter was surprised when instead of sobbing escaping him…It was laughter.

 

Full blown laughter. From the gut, and unearthed came this feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time. A feeling he missed, and he missed them, and he was shocked…But he even missed that imprisonment in the Compound for all of those weeks. Even if this Bucky and this Sam were looking at him like he was insane, he couldn’t bring himself to care very much. It was like the wide wound closed just a little bit.

 

Peter had needed that.

 

He would need it even more…In the coming hours.


	14. Adrift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “When it comes to Peter Parker…Tony can’t differentiate between being that kid’s mentor and being his father.”

 

It had been suggested he eat, before they start.

 

It reminded Peter of before a big test, when teachers would remind them the night before to eat breakfast. Something so mundane, a thing he missed about the norms of life Before the Snap. Before everything and that five-year gap, and then Tony dying, and then him trying to end everything in a split-second decision that was less than wise. Peanut butter and jelly sandwich, his aunt had smeared everything for him, and he felt small again, when she placed the plate in front of him and ran off elsewhere to find something to busy herself with. Peter could see in her eyes, behind her lashes, she was scared.

 

He was too.

 

After the little preview of the removal he had gotten at Mister Stark’s lake house, he very much didn’t want to relive those moments of having someone take control of him. Of pain and ripping and the thing on his chest was just a reminder of what was to come. As if that little letter in his skin held such a binding he was never going to escape from. He was permanently a slave to it, trapped behind it like a wall. Being scared, like a child, how the funeral had felt, how lonely it had seemed. His brain could hardly benefit from thinking at all.

 

Peter brought the bread to his mouth and chewed, busied himself as he tried not to feel awkward. Sam Wilson was a mere few feet away from him, leaning back in one of the chairs and studying him silently. Bucky Barnes was elsewhere, they had separated after their debacle. Peter had laughed so hard his stomach had hurt and it had been a nice escape from what was to come. A complete gift. Something to rescue Peter from his looming fate that was getting too close for comfort.

 

Sam tilted his head carefully. His mouth was in a line and he spoke, humor as Peter inhaled the sandwich, “Don’t choke, kid. Peanut butter kills.”

 

He was right, it was thick in his throat, but Peter took a gulp from his drink and smiled meekly. Maybe embarrassed that he had been right. Sam was still watching, and Peter felt like there was something that Peter couldn’t understand. Something Sam wanted to know and maybe was hesitating to ask, which was weird for him. Or at least it was weird for Peter’s Sam. The guy would ask the blunt questions, he wouldn’t avoid the hard ones. Maybe this Sam was no different, because the words escaped, hesitation disappearing…

 

“So…You’re from another dimension?”

 

Peter blinked. Right. People knew he wasn’t the real Peter, and Peter and Sam weren’t really pals in this world. Peter paused, looking around as if he thought he could find the answer on the white walls that had yet to be painted in their new wing of the Compound. Peter cleared his throat carefully before he answered, “I…Yeah, kinda.”

 

“Sold your soul to bring Stark back from the dead in your timeline, right?”

 

God, how did he know all of this?

 

Peter nodded, and responded, “Yeah…yeah…Basically.”

 

“No offense, kid,” Sam leaned back further and threw his arm over the back of one of the empty chairs, “That’s some fucked up voodoo shit.”

 

Peter snorted. He could not have agreed more. It was really messed up, all of it, and it was kind of unsettling when he took a step back from the whole ordeal and analyzed his decisions. He did not regret, wanting Mister Stark back. Mister Stark deserved to live. He deserved to grow old. He deserved to be with his family – but…but, there was always a but. It came in and screamed that Peter didn’t belong there, in that body, with those scars on his arm. Scars that belonged to someone that was a hero.

 

Sam continued, “Nat told me a lot of that, by the way. I didn’t go spying or something, trying to dig up dirt. Not really my style. I was just curious about what was going on. After the battle, I thought the spider-kid was hospitalized, yada-yada-yada. And yet here you are. She also told me she…well, that she bit it in your timeline.”

 

Bit it. That was one way to describe it.

 

Peter put the remainder of his sandwich down, deterred.

 

“You wanna ask something,” Peter said, because he knew. He could see it a lot in people’s eyes now, now that they knew what he was and where he was from what had happened differently. There were subtle changes in the timelines, different from before, things even Peter didn’t fully understand but he allowed himself to feel. Peter continued, too comfortable, because he had spent weeks running around Wilson and Barnes, avoiding them and messing with them. Finding it somewhat funny when he could escape, but mostly annoyed when they would find him. His doofus babysitters.

 

“You wanna ask, so ask,” Peter added.

 

Sam pursed his lips.

 

“Did I…bite it?”

 

Peter almost scoffed, not angry…Not even amused. He didn’t know what emotion he was feeling. Why it was bordering on irritation but also patience, because he knew what he was thinking. Wilson looked at him, patiently, as if he knew there was fear verging inside of himself and Peter did know. It was the same look Nat had shared briefly. When she wanted to know how she had died in Peter’s timeline. Knowing a demise had been simple inches away, through a vortex, should have been startling, and to them…It was.

 

“No,” Peter replied, “You became Captain America.”

 

It was blunt. Unquestionable.

 

Sam looked shocked. Then it etched into disbelief, humor, and he laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed and Peter’s face remained unchanging because Sam Wilson didn’t believe him, but it was the truth. Sam jerked when he must have realized there was no humor arriving, Peter wasn’t faltering and Sam pointed at his own chest and questioned, almost shrill, “Me!? Captain America?! Kid, have you seen me?”

 

“I’ve seen you,” Peter replied softly, “I’ve always seen you. You’re a hero.”

 

A pause, and then Peter finished, “Which is why Steve Rogers picked you.”

 

Sam seemed startled. His body was stiff, his mouth hanging open in shock. It was almost comedic in a way. Peter watched on, because he wanted Sam to understand, to absorb the fact that even though it hadn’t happened in their timeline, Peter was sure he was still just as capable. And something like that can make a person feel something deeply, deeply, and deeply. Sam deserved to know that. He had been good to Peter, despite his sarcasm, during his time at the Compound. Whether or not this was the same Sam didn’t matter. He was still Sam Wilson, one of his babysitters.

 

Before Sam could reply, the door to the kitchen area opened and Doctor Strange appeared. Peter’s stomach dropped a bit, deeper into himself and he wished he had finished the sandwich because the look on Strange’s face told him it was time…that they were ready, but the problem was, Peter didn’t think he himself was ready. He didn’t know how he could ever be. But he swallowed it, the fear, down because heroes weren’t afraid. They couldn’t be. And if he was ever going to become himself again, if he was ever going to get outside of what he had made himself…He had to do better. He had to be better.

 

“Is it…is it time?” Peter questioned, even though he knew the answer.

 

Strange nodded.

 

Nothing verbal, it was almost funny and foreboding and maybe he would have laughed if he hadn’t known how serious it was there, between them. Peter casted one last glance at Sam before pushing himself to his feet and moving to the door, what was left of his food forgotten. He walked behind Strange, watching his cloak, God Cloakie, he had shut him in the door. Peter cleared his throat and he asked, “Is…is Cloakie okay?”

 

Strange glanced over his shoulder, brows furrowed.

 

“Cloakie?”

 

“Yeah I…remember, I shut the door?”

 

He couldn’t see Strange’s face, but from the way his shoulders shrugged, he didn’t seem concerned in the slightest. Then Strange sounded almost like he was chuckling, a stark contrast from what Peter had experienced from him in the recent days of discovering he had come from a different timeline…Had destroyed his own.

 

“Funny that you would apologize to the cloak before Wong.”

 

“Well…” Peter mumbled, “Um…Ned actually pushed Wong.”

 

Not to completely throw his friend under the bus or anything, but it was the truth of the situation at hand. And it was…funny, in a weird sort of way and something entertaining to help him to escape the moment. Words to cling onto, words to focus on and to keep away the fear. He couldn’t be afraid – he didn’t want to be. Mister Stark wouldn’t afraid and the Peter of this universe obviously wouldn’t if he had sacrificed himself the way Mister Stark had done in his timeline.

 

“Doctor Strange…” Peter went on when the man said nothing, “I…I’m really sorry. For earlier. For how I acted in the hospital and stuff. I don’t really hate you, and I don’t know why I said all of those things. It wasn’t fair and I shouldn’t have…I shouldn’t have blamed you for something I did. I made that decision.”

 

The man stopped walking. In the corridor, paintless, Strange turned to look at him. His brows were downward, he appeared to be frowning as he looked into Peter’s face. The boy almost shrunk back, not from terror but from something else. He had looked into Strange’s face too many times in the past several months not to submit to him being an adult. Aunt May often times believed Strange over Peter and in some instances that had clearly been the wiser decision. But that fear stilled lived in Peter, the fear of not being trusted or believed or silenced by adults who claimed they knew better…Strange being one of those adults.

 

Strange inhaled, and they looked at each other in a token of quiet…

 

“Don’t apologize,” Strange ordered, and it was surprisingly gentle, like that night with the flame in the hospital room, “Don’t apologize for feeling those things. While I don’t believe your decision was wise, I can’t pretend to know the vastness of your grief. I only know the outcomes of your decisions, not the driving force.”

 

Peter felt…He almost felt like he had been shoved in the sternum. Not painful, just breathless, and Peter blinked rapidly, over and over…

 

“You saved me,” Peter croaked, “In my timeline.”

 

It sounded like his voice was on the verge of breaking in half. Or there was a clog somewhere deep within that could not be undone. Strange’s response was like scissors, cutting, and then stopping and Peter couldn’t find the words to respond when the man replied, “It was my doing that led you to that moment of your life. Surely it was my responsibility to help you from it.”

 

Sound turned to tinnitus and Strange moved away, gesturing for Peter, “Come. We need to start as soon as possible.”

 

Peter moved forward and a hand wrapped around his shoulder, physically leading him now down the corridors. His mind tried to theorize or imagine what was going to happen, but he didn’t know how to do such a thing, not with the situation at hand. There should have been more. More and more and more. It just delved too far though, too deep, to where Peter could no longer reach it. And when he and Strange turned the corner into that room where everyone was waiting, where he saw Mister Stark standing there with this look on his face, like he didn’t know what to say to Peter, because Peter had asked for this not to happen again and yet it was happening.

 

And it had to.

 

A table. Surgical. Wong. Silence…Eyes. Aunt May wasn’t there again. Distraction, she wasn’t allowed to be, just in case it got violent. Natasha was in the corner with Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner stood beside Mister Stark. Wong was at the foot of the table and Peter swallowed past the thick lump in his throat and he wished Sam and Bucky were there to make him laugh again, maybe just this last time before the bad things happened.

 

It felt like being led to a cliff. As he moved forward, towards the table. As Mister Stark helped him to sit down and he looked at the man – in the eyes. Stared as hands squeezed his shoulders and it felt like staring down each other on the dock while Peter was forced to spill his guts about how he had tried to end his life. But there in that moment he wanted so desperately to live.

 

“It’s gonna be okay,” Mister Stark said it, but it didn’t sound right. It sounded like something said to a kid that had nightmares about things all too real, and this was too much like that day – like being in the shop and knowing he was about to be torn open to remove the mark. But this time they had Wong too. This time they would work together and he wondered…He wondered what would become of it.

 

Peter tried to sound brave, “I know. I trust you.”

 

Mister Stark looked like he had been slapped in the face. Maybe like he wished Peter hadn’t said it, but it was too late to suck the words back in and they hadn’t been a lie. So he shouldn’t have had to. Mister Stark patted the side of his face, breaking the eye contact as he moved back, hissed something in Strange’s ear and Peter tried to read his lips, but if he had to guess, Mister Stark was threatening Strange’s very existence.

 

Wong stepped towards him, taking his arm and saying, “Lie back, please.”

 

Peter pause, blinked then stated before he could stop himself…

 

“I’m sorry you got pushed down the stairs.”

 

He was leaning back on his elbows. Wong casted him a look that resembled an irritated cat of sorts. His eyes rolled and he shrugged before responding, “Believe it or not, I’ve had worse tumbles. But make sure your friend knows I won’t soon forget.”

 

Peter almost laughed, but then he thought about what it would be like if he never got to see Ned again. So instead he fell the rest of the way onto the table, taking that fear with him to hopefully drown it in whatever was about to happen to him there in that room. He sucked in a deep breath, taking in the ceiling that looked like a life waiting to stop, with its dark grey breams that were new, everything was new, the paint smelled new. Peter recalled how the rubble had smelled like ash, Mister Stark had smelled like burned hair, Peter himself had smelled like blood, mud, and sweat. As the water in the shower turned brown and Peter had watched it circle the drain.

 

Doctor Strange’s face appeared.

 

“Brace yourself, Peter.”

 

Peter nodded. They slowly started to unbutton his shirt to expose the mark and cold air hit him and he shivered, though it might have been fear. He turned his head to the side to the corner of the room where Mister Stark was once again standing by Banner and he noticed for the first time Bruce Banner was standing beside a tray of medical equipment. Peter chewed the inside of his mouth, shaking, knowing those things must have been there for a precaution, but he didn’t know what the precaution was. This was dangerous.

 

Lilith could hurt him, or them, someone…

 

Mister Stark looked worried, so Peter did the only thing he could think of. He moved his arm from around Strange and gave a thumbs up.

 

One didn’t come in return.

 

Maybe he had forgotten to brace, but the words started then. Rolling from both Strange’s mouth and Wong’s mouth simultaneously. It was the strangest thing, Peter thought, because suddenly the hand he had held out to give the thumbs up grew stiff. His arms yanked inward, and his muscles went rigid. Peter’s chest tightened, he felt his ribs closing in around his lungs and it was like being suffocated from the inside. As if someone was squeezing him, the life slipping out of him, and his back arched, lifting off the table as he looked back into the ceiling that reminded him of grief. Rubble, and ash, and smoke. Hands trying to help him to stand as he sobbed and mouths telling him – it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright – a heart’s song of denial.

 

It wasn’t alright. Mister Stark was dead, and the voices faded, the chanting from Strange and Wong turned to mush against those padded walls of absolute despair and dropping a reactor into a lake where it could just float away as if it never existed. It would become nothing but rusted metal and Peter wanted them to keep it but Mister Stark was not his to grieve. He wasn’t Peter’s father, he didn’t deserve to cry over him the way Pepper and their daughter did, it was none of Peter’s fucking business.

 

The sky in all of its edges, it took upon itself to suck him inside and he wondered if he was ever going to be free of himself. Of the never-ending cycle of shame. Of having tried to kill himself, of not taking Tony’s place, of not being better – faster – braver. More courageous and stronger. And Strange’s stupid index finger – one chance. One chance. One chance. And Peter’s memories flowed, because in one world that index finger was meant for Tony and then there was this other altered reality where Peter had plummeted.

 

And that finger had been meant for him.

 

Screaming left his mouth and Peter let it because he felt like if he didn’t scream he would cease to breathe. So he wailed outward, outward, up and up. The grey turned black long before then and then there were all these stars and pinpricks. Peter slid down, slicing his spine, like coral in the ocean tearing into feet. Salt in the wounds left behind and he slammed into something hard, gagging and nearly vomiting, but it was almost too dark to make anything out and hands were sliding up his body, followed by a voice, silky…

 

“You have to come willingly,” She said, “It’s the only way for the pain to stop.”

 

But what pain? What pain? He was so used to it –

 

“Not your pain, Peter,” She replied, as if she could hear the thoughts, “His pain. Tony Stark’s pain. The pain you’ve been causing him since you failed against Thanos, since you turned to ash and all the suffering you’ve forced that man to endure. The only way to save him and make his pain stop is to get away from him. To leave him alone…”

 

She paused.

 

“To come with me.”

 

Peter looked up, eyes burning, trying to focus but he couldn’t see anything in front of his face. The hands were still on him, and their burning turned soft and welcoming and Peter almost relaxed into a knowledge that maybe he could find his Aunt May somewhere in the terror, or Uncle Ben, or even the old Tony Stark, the one who died in his timeline. The timeline that had ceased to exist. Somewhere deep inside he felt like it was something to trick and to maim, but he held up a hand, and another wrapped its fingers around him.

 

“You want to help him…Don’t you?”

 

Peter nodded.

 

“Then you have to come willingly.”

 

…

 

Tony stopped believing in happy endings the night he tried to get his father to listen to him about a new idea for the company, and Howard had turned his back and said nothing.

 

Tony stopped believing in happy endings when his mother and father didn’t come home one night because well, ‘tree meet car’ or so he thought at the time.

 

Tony stopped believing in happy endings in Afghanistan and the fear and the hurt and the anger, nightmares of Yinsen, followed him home and into his own bed. Into Malibu and tainted something he had built himself, clawing into his existence like something terribly dark and private.

 

Tony stopped believing in happy endings when Steve shoved a shield into his chest. When he looked into Steve’s eyes and knew instantly he had chosen his friendship with Bucky over his friendship with Tony.

 

Tony stopped believing in happy endings when Peter fell into his arms, crying, begging not to go and Tony could only hold onto flesh that was slowly dissipating like it had never been there in the first place and he had decided he was watching a sixteen-year-old child be snuffed out by pure evil and ideals that were not consistent with life.

 

Tony almost believed in happy endings when he got his second chance, his new shot at having a family.

 

Tony almost believed in happy endings when he solved time travel.

 

Tony almost believed in happy endings when he watched Peter Parker come out of that portal, when he saw his face, when he held him in his arms. That same feeling returned when Peter Parker woke up in bed and even if he was crying, disoriented, even if he now knew this was not the original Peter Parker from his timeline…He didn’t care. He almost believed in happy endings again, goddammit.

 

Then Tony no longer believed in happy endings at all, and he supposed he never would again, when Peter’s body stiffened, paled, and life left it.

 

It was a whole series of events. Lying Peter back, the boy giving his thumbs up, Strange and Wong starting the chanting that Tony swore he would hear in his nightmares for the rest of his life. The events turned and twisted, and there was no formation of a demon in the corner of the room like he had originally suspected would happen again, like at the lake house, but instead Peter seized, turned blue, turned every color Tony could associate with death until he went very pale and very silent in his screaming. No breathing – no rising and falling of his chest. Just emptiness in a room, and then a flash.

 

Bright, calling, and vicious.

 

At first, he thought – Lilith was coming and she was going to fuck them up. When their bodies flew, when they all hit the wall, Wong and Strange included, scattered about the room like a bunch of ragdolls. Tony coughed, dust rising into his nose and mouth and lungs and he was back in that warzone with Thanos for just a moment. He was no longer in the new Compound even if he felt Bruce grabbing at his arm as if trying to situate himself also and he could hear Natasha coughing heavily and Strange groaning in pain from snapping back into sheet rock and concrete all together.

 

Believing in happy endings didn’t silence the dark entrails of existence.

 

Bruce sounded like he was gagging on the smoke and dust and a figure beside Natasha jumped to its feet, and Tony would forever be envious of Cap’s ability to stand up and fight after such a powerful blow from a seemingly invisible explosion. Because Peter’s outline was still on the table, he hadn’t turned to mush like a bomb inside a human would, it was as if the blast had materialized from the kid’s skin and sent them back reeling, like red surrounding Wanda – and Tony hadn’t seen her in what felt like a lifetime. A long, long time…

 

Cap was leaning over the kid, and Tony had a question on his lips, and beforehand the question didn’t hold quite the right amount of panic. Tony had been confused, he supposed, lost in the tear between what was happy and tragic and having their chances ripped away again once more, but hoping deep down that explosion meant the mark was gone and Peter was free. But then the story book pages ripped out, burned themselves in the organs, because Steve’s voice carried past the tinnitus in Tony’s ears and through everyone’s, pulling people to attention.

 

“He’s not breathing!”

 

And God, God, God, it was Shakespearean almost. Tony was on his feet, using the wall to support himself, Bruce climbing up as well, both stumbling and figures were coming from all over as Bruce started trying to gather his cart of medical supplies. Throwing tubes, needles, plastic alike on it, scraping it from the ground and Peter, as Tony approached, looked fine. Absolutely fine besides the strange pale and blue coloring of his skin as if he had been born smothered.

 

Bruce shoved past him…Then Strange.

 

Tony’s ears wouldn’t stop ringing. His arms were limp as his sides as he watched on with horror as both Strange and Banner surrounded the boy. Steve stepped back to allow them room to work and there was the checking for a pulse, there was Banner’s hands being intertwined then pressing down on Peter’s chest repeatedly. Wong, and bright light, and slamming down and down and down and Peter’s body jolting with each assault – both scientific and magical, interloping around each other. Strange looked up at Tony – Tony had not moved, could not breathe, Peter looked like he had drowned, lips blue and purple at the edges and Tony stumbled closer, the door in the corner of the room flew open…

 

May’s voice was shrill and Tony thought – God could it be worse? But he couldn’t understand her…Nat had grabbed her shoulders to give Strange and Banner room to work, she kept asking what happened, explosion – something of the sort. Stupid, Tony was so stupid to trust and to think it could work and his brain was short circuiting, Peter wasn’t breathing – Peter wasn’t…

 

“Anything?” Bruce asked, pressing down…Wong continued whatever remedy he was trying and at that point, Tony didn’t know or care to know, he just wanted Peter to stop looking so lifeless and he wanted May not to scream.

 

Strange, fingers checking.

 

“Nothing.”

 

Bruce was muttering numbers, Tony was muttering senseless words, begging – begging Peter to stay alive, and he realized he was such a hypocrite. He had told Peter on that dock to keep living no matter what happened, and yet he was there, wondering how he could chunk himself out the nearest window if Peter didn’t regain color to his face. Around his mouth, to his fingers. Tony moved to his head, touched his face, his knuckles were bloody from being thrown and Tony ground the words out.

 

“C’mon kid, don’t do this.”

 

Tony’s eyes burned, he looked at Bruce, May was screaming, screaming, screaming and Tony questioned, voice rising, and soon he would probably be screaming too, if he knew himself and he did, all too well…

 

“What’s happening?”

 

No one answered.

 

Maybe there wasn’t time, or it was being lost in the chaos that they were in, the moment, Strange stepped away…Was grabbing the stuff Bruce had gathered and Tony stood outside of his own body, watching and watching and watching as everyone did things he didn’t understand. He wished with all of those degrees maybe he could have earned a fucking MD or something – to understand and to process. He felt like he was in that Humvee again, smothering, gunshots ringing out and panic breaking loose as he kept asking ‘what’s happening?’ But no one giving him a straight forward answer as they moved mechanically into something they could understand but he could not because he was neither a ‘soldier’ or an MD, just an existing person on a planet that he couldn’t participate in.

 

Peter’s body kept jolting. Tubes, wires…but not enough, Strange was asking Banner questions, Banner could hardly breathe, compressing, compressing, compressing. Tony looked at Peter’s face, still no color, purple and grey and losing. Tony opened his mouth to breathe, nothing escaped. He shouldn’t have let it happen, and happy endings were stupid and too far out of reach. He looked at May’s face further in the room, over Nat’s shoulder. She was watching, eyes wide, she had gone silent. The fire alarm was ringing from the smoke, the small explosion – God what had even happened?

 

Tony touched the kid’s face, then the top of his head.

 

“Peter,” Tony ground out, “Fucking hell, wake up. _Wake_ up!”

 

Then, as if a switch had flipped, Peter eyes snapped open to reveal what looked like two eight balls staring back at him.

 

Tony flinched, jaw dropping as he moved back. Peter’s eyes were wide, staring at the ceiling. Compressions stopped, but Strange was the only one who didn’t move away and neither did Wong. Instead Wong stepped in front of Banner and Strange in front of Tony…Creating some sort of barricade and Tony needed…He needed to see the kid. To get close, but now he couldn’t and he didn’t understand what was going on –

 

Peter’s mouth opened and a voice that was not his own melted into the smoky room.

 

“Peter Parker has taken his place in the basket,” It was certainly Lilith’s voice.

 

And as soon as his eyes had opened, they rolled back…and they shut.

 

No one moved. Bruce stepped forward, as if to continue the compressions, but Wong’s hand stopped him. His head shook back and forth and Bruce looked confused as well as everyone else, besides the two sorcerers. Tony grabbed at Strange’s cloak, he squeezed in anger, wondered if it was hurting the loyal cloth, and Strange looked back at him, this expression that seemed empty and lost and knowing all at the same time. Regretful in fact. Enough to make Tony want to scream with questions that could not and would not erupt from his chest.

 

“What happened!?” May did it for him, “What happened!? Why did you stop!?”

 

Strange still said nothing, and Tony grabbed the front of his shirt. It felt like that day in the hospital when he had realized that Strange had known Peter was going to put on that gauntlet, when he had known Peter was the lamb for the slaughter. Being led to that moment – knowing, and knowing, and knowing and now it looked like Strange knew again and this time it was as permanent as that grey under Peter’s skin and those scars on his arm. Tony felt the entire world imploding with vicious intent and he couldn’t bring the words out, but then they escaped, like venom…Shaky and intentional, spitting angry.

 

“Don’t you dare, Strange,” Tony growled, “You don’t let him – you don’t let him die. I swear to God, I’ll kill you. If you let him die, I will _kill_ you.”

 

Strange shook his head, grim and clinical.

 

“He’s already dead, Tony.”

 

May must have heard, because a wail escaped her across the room and Tony’s teeth went like nails against one another as he shoved Strange as hard as he could out of the way. He was at the table, looming over, pressing his hands down and he knew the basics of CPR. He knew what was meant to be done and he pressed down into the kid’s chest, desperate and empty and maybe he was crying with rage, he didn’t know. It wasn’t grief, not yet, not like when he thought they were going to have to unplug Peter – this was bright and murderous anger, like those people who take everything out through a knife into a back and Tony pressed and pressed and pressed, grunting with each shove, and he swore maybe ribs were giving way under him.

 

Strange grabbed at him. Wong was still pushing Banner back.

 

“Tony stop!” Strange tried, the fire alarm still going, “Stop! He’s gone!”

 

The hand on his arm was thrown off, Tony shouted, “Get off!”

 

And he continued. Continued. Continued and Peter didn’t so much as stir besides the shake of his body, the tensing of his muscles. The knowing, under Tony’s fingers, Peter was still warm. He was still there, Tony could still feel all of the life and he wanted to tell the kid how much he meant to him. That he meant something, that he was important, and he couldn’t because Peter was dying. He wasn’t going to be there and he couldn’t wrap his head around this and all of it, it was like Peter was turning to ash all over again under him.

 

Tony had never been father material, not until he met the kid and realized this was what could be done. May was begging, Tony couldn’t let her lose her last family member, he didn’t think he could stand to lose the kid a third fucking time without absolutely falling off the deep end, abandoning a family he had selfishly created when he knew he was a goddamn mess and the world was overflowing with this, and Tony was thinking more and more about that window to chunk himself out of.

 

An arm yanked him back. Stronger than Strange and he knew it had to be Steve, the stupid super soldier serum making such as that possible, despite all of Tony’s adrenaline. The world turned silent, an area of ringing, he could no longer hear or see as he was pulled towards the corner of the room. It was tunnel vision, all he could look at was Peter’s pale body on the table, shirt torn open, arms lying limply beside himself and lips blue. Strange reached behind himself, sliding the cloak from his shoulders, people were screaming, May was collapsing, and Nat was trying to hold her up…

 

The cloak slid over Peter’s body.

 

Tony slammed his fist into Steve’s arm repeatedly. But the soldier didn’t release. Words – people telling him to calm down. Bruce moved into his line of sight when he couldn’t see Peter under the cloak anymore. Bruce was saying something too but Tony continued trying to free himself. Even when he saw the syringe in Bruce’s hand, even when he felt it prick his arm.

 

Even when he was slowly sinking into the ground, he screamed Peter’s name.

 

…

 

It was called The Basket.

 

Peter didn’t know how he knew that.

 

An empty place, of unwelcomed wailing and fear. Undeniable suffering, and yet he couldn’t see. He couldn’t feel. It was like floating in an unnerving ocean, anxiety coursing through him and hearing the cries of unfamiliar voices in the background. Ceaseless cries of death and destruction and anger. Peter opened his mouth, it filled with fluid, and tasted vile and then he was plummeting…Down, down, down, down…

 

Snap.

 

Peter hit something hard. The darkness faded in what looked to be a twilight sky above head and he was breathless from his back slamming down so viciously. Peter inhaled – he gagged and turned, coughing up liquid onto a grassy ground under his hands. Grass. Actual grass that looked dead and decayed and Peter tried to process the world around him, past the twilight sky and the flecks of dust in his vision as he rolled, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees and struggled to stand.

 

Peter blinked, tears flickering on his face.

 

He reached out a hand when he stumbled sideways, taking hold of a stone wall to his left. The grass crunched, Peter was barefoot, dressed in what felt like pajamas. Vines clawed up the wall, and there was another one about arm’s length to his right, in a long corridor leading forward and backward, but nowhere to go otherwise. Peter’s brain tried to make sense of what he was seeing, but before he could even theorize, a voice spoke from behind him…

 

“Hello Peter.”

 

He whirled, eyes wide. Lilith was there, hands folded in front of her and a smile on her lips. She almost didn’t look threatening like that. Her head tilted.

 

“Welcome to my labyrinth.”

 

…

 

Steve Rogers had done a lot of awful things.

 

Carrying a frail sixteen-year-old’s corpse to a makeshift morgue in the unfinished Compound’s basement was one of those awful things.

 

A giant freezer, walk-in, meant to store months and months of food was empty because they had yet to need it. They had removed Strange’s cloak, in favor of a white sheet and Steve walked into the freezer after Tony’s unconscious body had been removed from him, after he had scooped the kid up upon Strange’s orders…After he had been told they needed to preserve the body for reasons unknown to him…Steve was still confused as to what was happening. Peter Parker was dead. They had failed him and yet Strange and Wong were acting as if it wasn’t quite the case, but wouldn’t speak anything hopeful into existence.

 

So May Parker still sat upstairs mourning. Tony Stark was still sedated.

 

Peter Parker was still dead.

 

Bucky stood at the door, holding it open for him as he carefully laid Peter onto one of the tables. He slid his hand under his head, setting it gently as he slipped his coat off, putting it under the boy’s skull. Maybe dead people didn’t need pillows, but it felt wrong to leave him looking so uncomfortable. Bucky was watching and Steve stared into the face of the young person that had put on a gantlet, had snapped his fingers, had saved an entire universe and yet in his universe, had lost everything. Steve still had trouble wrapping his mind around all of the events that had led to that moment.

 

He still struggled to wrap his mind around who and what Peter Parker was at all.

 

A kid from Queens who wanted to do good. Recruited by Tony when he was only fourteen, had gone to space, had nearly died after putting on the gauntlet. Snapping his fingers, stopping Thanos. A hero in someone so young and small and Steve felt guilty, because it shouldn’t have had to be Peter Parker. It should have been him or one of the adults, someone else. Asking so much of someone so young was like having child soldiers on a field and for some reason it made Steve feel villainous for allowing it, even if he knew Spider-Man was a perfectly capable hero.

 

“Tough kid,” Bucky commented quietly from the doorway, “Small…Kinda scrawny. Reminds me of someone I used to know.”

 

Steve’s mouth upturned. He looked at Bucky, somewhat amused but it felt so laden with a grief he felt guilty for feeling because he barely knew Peter Parker. He responded in a whisper, as if Peter was sleeping, as if he wasn’t dead, “Trust me, this kid is better. Saved half the universe, after all. What was I doing when I was sixteen?”

 

“Getting your ass beat in alleys.”

 

Steve chuckled. Again, so quiet. He wanted to look at it from a fond standpoint and yet he couldn’t. Slowly he ran his hands through his hair and shut his eyes, shaking his head back and forth as he muttered, “God, this is gonna kill Tony.”

 

“Maybe not,” Bucky didn’t come forward. Didn’t move back. The emotions made Bucky awkward, Steve knew, but he had always persisted for Steve’s benefit. Bucky swallowed, then shrugged lightly, “Strange and that other guy…You know they do weird shit I don’t understand. I don’t think any of us do. But I don’t think we should count that kid as dead yet. No one ever really is, I mean look at me…I fell off a fucking train.”

 

Steve scoffed, “And what about Clint? He’s…pretty dead.”

 

Bucky sighed. He shook his head, “This isn’t the same. This kid…He’s floating around somewhere. I mean, he has to be, right? If this Lilith chick is all powerful, if she can just suck his soul right out of him, she should be able to put it back. And she seems like the kind of lady that likes to make deals.”

 

“So, what are you saying?” Steve asked.

 

“I’m saying…” Bucky swallowed, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning on the open door to the freezer, “Maybe we can still bargain for this kid. We gotta have something she’d want, right?”

 

“What, another soul?” Steve sounded desperate to understand, as if Bucky could even pretend to know how all the mystic stuff worked, “I mean…Tony would die for that kid. So a part of me is hoping if it comes down to it…We can’t give him the option. Because we know what he’d choose. Even if he does have a family, he’d die for them and he would die for that kid…”

 

Steve paused, then:

 

“When it comes to Peter Parker…Tony can’t differentiate between being that kid’s mentor and being his father.”


	15. Scuttling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Peter was nauseated as he looked back upward, not shouting this time, but asking through gritted teeth, “What do you want from me?”
> 
> Then…almost as if it answered all of his questions…the silence broke.
> 
> Replaced by a low growling.

May had never planned to become a mother.

 

Truth was, the thought had never occurred to her before. She had never been one of those little girls that dreamed of children, a life with a white picket fence and such. She had been more preoccupied with having fun, parties, sneaking out late to see friends and boys alike and doing things she probably would hope any offspring would not follow doing. But she had grown up, had met Benjamin Parker, and truthfully still – the thought of children still never occurred to her, even after her brother and sister in-laws had their own child.

 

She did remember when Peter was born. How squishy he was, and how she had found him to be cuter than most newborns that she had found to resemble aliens from another planet. There hadn’t been the usual baby fever. She and Ben had never talked about kids, it had never come up, it was the sort of thing that just theorized along the lines of ‘if it happens, it happens, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t’. It hadn’t happened, therefore they were not parents.

 

May didn’t know if she believed in fate or destiny. Sometimes she hoped it was real, but it had felt a lot like fate that early morning when they had gotten a phone call that Peter’s parents were dead…and he would need somewhere to go.

 

So he came to them. And May became a mother.

 

At first, having a four-year-old around was just like any of Peter’s visits with them. They’d play, have a good time. But they also mourned. Then, the first time she and Ben had to actually discipline, the first little breakdown that children just sometimes had, the first nightmare, the firsts…All of them that made her and Ben realize that Peter was theirs now…That was when she started to feel things were different. She and Ben had to work out who would bring Peter to school, who would pick him up, would anyone be home when he got back from school, who would help with homework, who would pack his lunch, who would wash his hair, his clothes, everything. Being the fun, carefree auntie and uncle seemed to be a thing of the past.

 

They were Mom and Dad.

 

It got easier, routine set in. May enjoyed her role, and she loved Peter more than anything and she knew Ben loved Peter just as much. She wasn’t sad when he had become the center of their universe. They both enjoyed it, and they enjoyed the rewards of watching Peter grow into a young man. An extremely intelligent one, at that, something she supposed he got from his mother and father. Both renown scientists in their own rights. Which led to choosing Midtown and she and Ben couldn’t have been happier when Peter got in.

 

But then after one rainy night…Suddenly, it was just her. Just her, and Ben was buried, and she was a single mother. Something she had definitely never imagined.

 

Parker Luck, she supposed.

 

Then Peter was hers. Hers. All hers, and she both loved and hated it at the same time, because Ben should have been there to see him grow too. Life changed when Tony Stark walked through that door, they had gone months and months of it just being the two of them, but after that field trip overseas, Peter came back and suddenly she was sharing him with someone she barely knew. All she knew about Tony Stark was what was seen on the news. All she knew about him was the glimpses of his arrogance, but brilliance, well deserved.

 

It was weird, sharing _her_ Peter with this invisible person…

 

_May noticed the way Tony twirled his finger over the top of the coffee mug._

_It was awkward._

_May had no illusions of this conversation being smooth sailing. She had, after all, expressed her dislike of the man to Peter some weeks ago in that restaurant. She had figured out what they had been doing behind her back. Had waited until a night she knew Peter would be at Ned’s (definitely there, not patrolling, the suit was laying on the back of the living room couch just so she could keep an eye on it). She had told Tony Stark he could come over for late night coffee or she could arrive and make a scene at his office that he supposedly rarely stayed in._

_Maybe he was afraid she would tattle on him to Pepper, his newly acquired fiancée._

_Tony looked around the apartment, before he spoke, lacking his usual charisma, and maybe she was unnerving, but she needed to be. For Peter’s sake at least. Her nephew was the least threatening thing, with round eyes that held stars in front of Stark. She had faith in his abilities, but she also knew that hero worship led to being taken advantage of and she wasn’t willing to let that happen here._

 

_She had to be unsettling._

_“You painted,” He commented, pointed, “I like it. Bright colors. Pepper always goes for more neutral tones –“_

_He glanced back over his shoulder towards Peter’s bedroom and continued, “Must be doing all kinds of makeovers. Did he get the new computer? I sent it a few weeks ago, the other one was absolutely outdated –“_

_“Tony,” May said, putting a finger on her lips, “Sh.”_

_He hesitated, then nodded, “Right…Not here to talk about apartment makeovers, am I?”_

_May said nothing. She didn’t know how to start, but she kept her shoulders squared, her back straight. She had learned in New York that women had to carry themselves a certain way to be heard over the roar of business men, and the Starks were THE business family of the last two centuries. Tony scratched the stubble on his face, then sighed, “Jesus, I haven’t felt this much pressure since sitting in the principal’s office after leaving a taser under my teacher’s seat.”_

_She almost laughed. Almost. Because once she had done something very similar. But this was serious, she couldn’t let her guard down. She grabbed her mug and she spoke slowly, “My nephew had a Spider-Man suit. One that, he says, was given to him. Took some prying, but eventually I got my answer as to who.”_

_Stark grimaced, “Is there a fifteen-year-old running around with his teeth pried out on my behalf somewhere?”_

_“This isn’t funny,” May said, and Stark sobered immediately, “My nephew, Tony…My child has been dressing up as a vigilante and running around the city. And this isn’t even new, I’m finding out he’s been doing this since he was fourteen. **Fourteen** , Tony. Can you even fathom how young that is?”_

_“Compared to you and me…Yes,” Finally he sounded serious, “That’s very young.”_

_She held the mug tighter, “Then why would you enable him?”_

_Tony shifted. He sat straighter and put his elbows on the table, leaning in. The conversation had grown too personal for such distance. He tapped his fingers on the table a few more times, as if thinking before he replied, “I enabled him to protect him.”_

_May must have looked disgusted because he amended quickly, “Look…When I came in, Peter was…He was running around in a onesie with webshooters he built in his chemistry classroom, May. A suit that offered no protection. The only thing between him and a bullet or a knife was basically…pajama fabric. When I came here that day, I admit, it was for selfish reasons. I needed someone to help me. A need for hands, and Peter Parker…As far as I was concerned was a strong non-lethal answer to my problem…”_

_She blinked, and Tony went on, “But I let him keep the suit, because I knew that kid wasn’t going to stop. Because I saw too much of myself in him. I didn’t wanna stop and neither did he, and the suit…the suit is meant to keep him alive.”_

_“I could have made him stop before it got this far,” May ground out._

_“No offense,” Tony shook his head, “But…No…You couldn’t have. I’m not doubting your parenting skills. I’m not doubting what you could do to ground him, or how much your love could change him. But let’s put it into perspective: Pepper Potts loved me a whole lot…Begged me to hang it up. And I agreed, and still…still I almost sicced a death-bot on the Earth. Doesn’t mean she didn’t love me, doesn’t mean I didn’t love her. There’s something about this, May, that I couldn’t stop, and neither can he.”_

_God, she had never heard anything more terrifying than her nephew being compared to Tony Stark. Especially from the man himself._

_May pressed her coffee to her lips, closed her eyes, and tried not to cry…As if such a thing was a death sentence._

May sat outside of Tony’s room, crouched on the floor.

 

There had been no movement since they had sedated him several hours before. She wasn’t sure the exact amount of time that had passed since silence grew over the newly established Compound besides the sounds of construction outside of its walls. She held her knees close to her, wished for him to wake up because she felt like…Somewhere inside of her he was the only person that could understand what had just transpired. What she had witnessed, as her nephew’s body went lifeless and he lay pale and purple and blue on that table.

 

Strange and Wong explained nothing, and May was bordering on strangling answers out of the both of them. Instead her nephew lay dead. Seemingly permanently. She didn’t know where to go, who to talk to, what to say to anyone. It was like empty moments passing by with threatening overlaps.

 

She looked up, from the floor when she heard shoes making their way towards her. She must have zoned out because by the time her eyes rose, she was face to knee with someone. Blinking up, she saw Natasha Romanoff there, standing with a cup of something in her hand. May swallowed thickly, just as Natasha started to kneel down in front of her and offer the cup.

 

“Chamomile tea,” Natasha said softly.

 

May took the cup between shaky fingers as Natasha took a seated position on the floor beside her. She didn’t know her super well, interactions were brief, but at this point May was willing to take anyone that would just sit with her and envelope the quiet. Accept it as fact: Peter Parker is dead. But May struggled. It was like struggling with Ben – struggling to accept it. She had only just gotten him back, when she thought she would have to be merciful and take him off of life support. Now she was losing him again. For what felt like the millionth time.

 

She brought the drink to her lips, and gulped, hoping for the stress to fade in just the slightest.

 

When May brought it away from her mouth, she sniffed…Her nose was clogged from all the crying. She looked over at Natasha who was staring and waiting. She didn’t look clinical but collected and May wished she could be too. May shrugged as if embarrassed for her show of emotion, “Sorry I sound like I have the plague.”

 

It wasn’t really even meant to be funny. It was more of a coping mechanism, a way not to completely lose it right then and there. Natasha shook her head, “Don’t apologize. As far as I’m concerned, you have all the right in the world to sound that way.”

 

May wanted to thank her, but she wasn’t sure what for. She wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it. She just felt heavy on the inside. Weighed down and completely helpless. Her hands continued to shake, when the sound of heels clicking down the hall caught her attention, this time she noticed before the new comer was completely on top of her. Pepper was striding down, coming towards the closed door and May wasn’t sure why she stood so quickly, but she did. And in an instant, May was wrapping her arms around Pepper in an embrace, careful not to spill the drink in her hand.

 

Pepper whispered, “I’m so sorry.”

 

They must have called her, contacted her where she and Morgan were safely in New York. May held tightly, hugged her in response and she felt almost relieved that Tony’s wife would be there for him when he woke up, because she knew she-herself would not be very good support in the state she was in. Natasha stood as well as Pepper pulled away, and her eyes were sincerely apologetic and May just shook her head…

 

“Go check on him.”

 

Pepper nodded in response, squeezed her shoulder one last time before moving around her and opening the door, shutting it behind herself. Natasha put a hand on May’s shoulder and asked, “Wanna take a walk?”

 

May didn’t say anything. She just followed.

 

…

 

Tony hadn’t slept like that since the night he got back from space and Banner had sedated him.

 

The rest of the five years, as much as he tried to ignore it for the sake of his newly found domestic life, were spent suffering through nights and nights of insomnia. Visions of Peter Parker turning to ash right in front of him and now, he supposed he would dream of the kid turning blue and purple, going to ice under his struggling hands that worked so hard to revive him. Yet Strange had pulled him away, Steve had pulled him away.

 

And Peter was once again dead.

 

Just like the Snap.

 

The first thing he realized when he woke up was the blinds were closed. It was dark, besides lines casting over the bed he was lying on. His body felt vaguely numb and Tony didn’t bother to move because the grief hit instantly. It wasn’t slow and inviting, it wasn’t steady and comforting, it was like getting hit all at once, all over again, except now the remnants of drugs in his system he couldn’t mourn so openly like when he had been screaming in that room. He couldn’t cry and shout out all of the rage and failure that was accumulating inside of him like a pool of lies. Lies that had said ‘You can save him. You can take care of him. You will get to watch him grow up this time’.

 

He was never going to get to watch Peter Parker grow up.

 

The kid was always going to be sixteen.

 

Like that day on Titan. Or night. Whatever it was…Tony couldn’t be sure. He just knew there was brokenness. His body lay still, he counted his breathing just to have something to think about other than Peter dying. Being gone. It was almost harder, than the coma in a way. There was no hope of the boy waking up, his body was probably cold at that point. What was he going to do with that? What was he going to do?

 

To Tony, it tightened around his chest and it squeezed.

 

For a child that wasn’t his biologically, it sure did hurt. As if a knife had been twisted, and Tony was attached, he was. He had grown fond of the kid, protective, dammit he had done all he could to keep him alive and yet he had still failed to do so. In one timeline and the next. Strange had to save Peter from the other timeline. He had to save him from himself because Tony had snapped his fingers and died. In theirs Peter had snapped his fingers, died, comatose, then come back just to find out it wasn’t their original Peter and it made Tony’s head swirl with absolute grief. Something so intense he thought he would never feel it again after five years.

 

“Tony?”

 

The voice made him jump. Movement to his right made him realize he wasn’t alone in the dark room and when the lamp clicked on, he saw the familiar face of his wife. Tony’s stomach plummeted. Not with brokenness upon seeing her but knowing. Knowing that this was it, he was breaking down. He was losing his fucking mind because this was the person he trusted most in the world – one of the only people he would let see him so broken. Tony’s muscles still felt weak, and yet he managed to say it, sounding vaguely like he did that day he got off the ship and was met by Steve Rogers on the landing.

 

“We lost him, Pep.”

 

“I know,” She started to stand and leaned over on the bed, putting a hand on the mattress to support herself.

 

Tony continued, as if rambling, beginning to breathe heavily against his chest, as if his ribs had trapped him inside of his skin, gasping out, “We lost him.”

 

“I know, Tony,” Pepper repeated, sitting on the edge and reaching out to run her fingers through his hair and he felt bad – he felt like an infant, but for some reason he couldn’t stop the tears blooming at the corners of his eyes, threatening to fall and swallow him whole. Tony gulped down and she went on, “They called me, they told me.”

 

Tony scoffed, weakly, “Who? Strange? Rogers? Fucking Banner, goddamn, they sedated me again and for what? To prolong the mental breakdown I was having in that room? They didn’t do shit, Pepper, they stopped trying to save him. They stopped CPR, they didn’t try and Peter was just laying there and May – May will never forgive me.”

 

Pepper only shushed him. She adjusted herself and he tried to inhale again and again and again, but the squeezing was still happening, Peter was still dead and Tony still had no idea how to deal with that. He still had no idea where to put that in his head. She scooted closer. Put her hands on both sides of his face and she reassured, “This isn’t your fault.”

 

“Yes, it is,” Tony replied.

 

“It’s not,” She said, “Tony…you couldn’t have known this would happen. We still don’t know exactly _what_ even happened. I mean…they said they were trying to remove the mark and what? He just shut down? That’s not you – that’s not anything you did. Everyone tried their best, including you.”

 

Tony shook his head, eyes wide. Tear filled to the brim and he tried to be stronger than that, he was a grown man, but the kid – Peter, Peter, Peter was gone. And it was too hard to carry that on his shoulders along with everything else. He didn’t know how to make her listen. He didn’t know how to make her understand the absolute grief that was underneath him, but he tried, voice cracking and mind trying to numb because it felt like he was going into shock –

 

“He trusted me.”

 

Pepper shut her eyes, she continued to hold both sides of his face. She was silent and Tony went on, “He trusted me to save him. I didn’t. Now he’s gone…And I can’t forgive myself for that. Not even close. He was a child, Pepper. A child that I was supposed to protect, he was mine to protect and I turn around and he’s gone and…just like that…it’s empty all over again.”

 

When her eyes opened, they too had tears in them. She leaned forward, her lips pressed to his brow and she murmured, “Peter Parker would never want you to feel this way…And he certainly would never blame you for what happened.”

 

Tony ground his teeth.

 

“Peter Parker…Wouldn’t blame someone for stabbing him between the shoulder blades. That’s not saying much.”

 

…

 

Strange wasn’t sure if he had poured over so many books since he was in medical school.

 

Or maybe when he was learning under the Ancient One, trying to absorb every piece of information he could. His goal was so different then, something that seemed so small now, to stop his hands from trembling after such an accident that had left him alive and yet wishing he had been dead. Enough to turn his back on everyone, not that he had been particularly attached to anything to begin with.

 

The tapping beside him was ear splitting though he didn’t know why. He felt like he was on the edge of something, though he didn’t know what. Like when emotions inched too close to a mental breakdown, when throwing objects and anger became appealing and tearing into another person was close enough to touch. He still remembered that day Palmer had come to his apartment. When he had been nothing more than a man who was heartless to someone who was simply trying to help him.

 

Strange despised failure and at the moment, the boy lying cold in the morgue was that. A failure. Strange’s failure. Someone he had decided he was going to save and hadn’t. Strange wasn’t quite so far gone that he needed sedation like Stark. Maybe because the emotion was different. There wasn’t the same attachment, Peter Parker felt more like a patient than a family member and that was what held the strings together clinically. Even if this was different. Peter Parker was different for many reasons – clearly in some other timeline they had been closer than they were now and that was unnerving in the oddest sort of way.

 

The tapping continued. Strange lost the ability to think and he looked up where Wong was tapping his fingers on the table, also reading over old texts. Strange questioned, “Must you do that?”

 

Wong paused, “What?”

 

“The tapping. I can’t think.”

 

“The tapping is impeding thinking?” Wong hummed, musing, “That’s odd, I thought you had an MD. Don’t doctors have to work under high stress situations?”

 

“The high stress situation is even more high stress with your tapping, Wong,” Strange huffed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “I am in dire need of sleep and I can’t until we figure this out, so please…Stop irritating me.”

 

Wong murmured, “My how the tables have turned.”

 

Strange slammed a hand down and snapped, “Alright, how about this? Share with the rest of the class what you’ve found in the past several hours that we’ve been reading over these texts. I would be absolutely thrilled to be enlightened instead of wanting to rip your ears off your body.”

 

“So violent,” Wong sighed, shaking his head back and forth as he slowly turned his book around to face Strange. Strange reached out, sliding the object towards himself as he looked down upon an illustration. It was black and white, pencil it seemed, drawing a hoard of animals – dogs, crawling through a space that Strange didn’t recognize. Wong explained, “The Basket. Lilith’s Basket to be more precise, it seems there are several demons like her who have such things. When the boy was possessed, Lilith’s voice stated he had taken his place there.”

 

Strange swallowed, “And what is The Basket exactly?”

 

“A fold,” Wong met his eyes, looking grave, “A fold in the universe. Reality. What have you…This fold is dark and sullen, obviously demonic since we’re dealing with Lilith. Demons with enough power have the ability to open these folds and have a sort of control over them. It’s often where they store the souls they collect, hence the name, Basket.”

 

Strange ground his teeth, “So this is where Peter’s soul would be.”

 

“Simplified, yes,” Wong nodded.

 

Strange bit his lip, thinking before he tilted his head and pressed his index finger to the page, “And could someone enter this fold? Someone other than Lilith?”

 

“Theoretically,” Wong answered, uneasily, “But these folds aren’t…They aren’t what you’re thinking. Folds open, but they also close behind themselves. Someone would need to go inside and someone would need to hold the door open while the other searches for the soul, in this case Peter, within The Basket.”

 

Strange shrugged, “So you hold the door open and I go in.”

 

Wong tsked, “Not that simple.”

 

He tapped the page in front of Strange. Strange groaned and shook his head, waving his hand impatiently, “Just get on with it, Wong.”

 

“If we want to pull a specific soul out, that presents an issue,” The other man rolled his eyes in irritation at Strange’s demands, “Do you have any idea how many souls Lilith has probably collected over thousands and thousands of years? She has existed…apparently from the beginning of time, and so has this Basket. It’s nearly infinite. If we’re going to find a specific soul, we need to send in someone who has a close tie to Peter Parker. An emotional bond will bring the two souls right to each other, which is probably why Lilith hasn’t bothered to kill anyone else. She wants Peter and she doesn’t want any other souls in there to interfere.”

 

“A connection,” Strange echoed, “And I’m guessing you’re not suggesting we send in his aunt.”

 

Wong gazed knowingly…

 

Strange sighed.

 

“You want to send in Stark.”

 

…

 

Tony didn’t know how he got out of bed.

 

Mostly Pepper. That much was clear.

 

She had advised against going down there, she had tried her best to convince him not to, and yet he couldn’t help it. It was just this inner drive that pushed it, that made this insane request to go down to their makeshift morgue and to see Peter with his own eyes. To know that what happened really happened and that Peter was lifeless. It wasn’t self-destruction, at least Tony didn’t see it that way. It felt more like an adjustment – he had to do it. Otherwise he would have been smothered in the wonder of not knowing whether or not Peter could be saved. That he was still alive. That denial wasn’t so nauseating.

 

It was the longest walk of his life, from the room they had put him in to the freezer in what seemed like a basement. Tony hated it, the thought of them leaving Peter somewhere so dark and cold, the kid wouldn’t – would definitely not like it down there, if he was alive. Alone. No one to talk to, cause the kid was always running his mouth, even though lately the weight of everything had made him oddly quiet. Tony rounded all the corners, took the stairs, but once he got to the bottom, he looked back at Pepper.

 

“I need to do this alone.”

 

Maybe it wasn’t fair, they were married after all, they had agreed to share these issues and her eyes looked hurt, but she nodded anyway and let him go the rest of the way down without interference. He flipped the light switch on, finding the door to the freezer closed. Tony ran both hands through his hair, and sighed deeply, processing the fact that this was it. This was it, and he didn’t know why it had to end there but it did, he supposed. A cycle of something, coming full circle and the cold air blasted into his skin and Tony went inside that dark icy place.

 

Smothered.

 

It wasn’t this slow band-aid being removed from his skin. It wasn’t a nice easy and welcoming silence. It was just there, inside of him, growing in a way he couldn’t vocally share with anyone. Peter was there, lying motionless and when Tony got closer, he didn’t miss the jacket Steve had been wearing bundled up and stuck under the kid’s head like a pillow, something of comfort for someone so young and Tony imagined him geeking out over the fact that ‘Captain freaking America’ as Peter would call him, put a jacket beneath his head and left it there.

 

But Peter couldn’t. Peter was dead and blue.

 

He looked frozen.

 

Tony reached up, taking icy fingers between his own and he squeezed tightly, hoping maybe he could somehow bring life to the skin. But he couldn’t, he knew that wasn’t how it worked even though he so deeply wished for it to be. His heart clattered in his chest, it thumped around like an uninvited agony. Peter, the kid he had only ever wanted to watch grow up, was dead before Tony could die and there was something unfair in that. Tony should have died way before Peter ever could.

 

“Kid,” The words bounced off the walls, “I’m so fucking sorry.”

 

There was no movement, no twitch, nothing that indicated Tony had even been heard, but somewhere deep down, it made him feel better to utter the words, even if the kid could not hear them. They just held a formal apology, one Tony wasn’t going to be able to say again. Eventually, they’d probably bury the kid. He would be underground, Tony would lose his goddamn mind and his family would have to suffer for it.

 

He couldn’t survive this again. Not really.

 

Tony ground his teeth together, “I just thought we’d have more time this go-around.”

 

Quieter…

 

“I thought we’d have more time.”

 

They didn’t. Not really, not ever.

 

Tony’s other hand shook, raising to touched Peter’s curls. He pressed down, as if the child was glass and would shatter if he was too forceful. Like holding his daughter for the first time, afraid of breaking someone because he had always broken people and he had never wanted to break Peter. He had seen a legacy there, a chance to give something back to the world in the form of a person, to pass on knowledge and experience to someone that could use it and not mar things and people the way Tony had. A blank slate of intensity. Someone that wasn’t his biologically, but shared that same Stark genius in a way that Tony couldn’t understand.

 

He and May shared him, after all, she had been kind enough to do that when Tony had no right to him.

 

Especially not after how he had behaved during the ferry boat shit.

 

Tony caressed Peter’s hair before leaning forward, and whispering, “I could’ve done more. Should’ve. I’m pretty shitty compared to the Tony from your timeline. You should have never had to put on the gauntlet, and you should never have had to make that goddamn wish. Seems like in every scenario I’m just…Letting you down.”

 

His eyes burned. The tear that slipped through snuck up on him, like a virus, and it dropped down, landing on Peter’s forehead. Tony inhaled, shutting his eyes to stop anymore from coming, but things happened like that and he just leaned over the kid, more and more tears trying to get out and free themselves and show the world just how much of a screw up Tony Stark really was. Tony ground the words out, as if he was in physical agony…

 

“You deserve so much more.”

 

Just as the sentence escaped, Tony almost instantly felt eyes on his back. He thought it was Pepper and he was just about to say something when a completely different voice echoed in the empty freezer, the voice of Stephen Strange –

 

“Stark.”

 

Tony almost screamed. Almost let everything out, almost told him to get the hell away from the kid and to never get near him again, to ask why he couldn’t do more, to ask why he couldn’t save him, to question everything broken and wrong and icy. Tony wanted to scream and kick and fight, and he didn’t know how to do it without looking like a two-year-old. But before he could – the words rang out –

 

“Wong and I…We think we can save him.”

 

And Tony…He opened his eyes. Looked at Peter’s face. He tried not to let hope attack, but it did.

 

He leaned forward and pressed his lips to the crown of Peter’s head.

 

…

 

Peter tried to think about how long he had been walking.

 

Everything looked the same and to be honest, Peter hadn’t been doing a very good job at keeping track of where he had been and where he hadn’t been. He tried his best, truly, but it was a vast world of brick, grass, and vines climbing up the walls and he tried the Hansel and Gretel approach, tried tearing up vines in certain places, but soon everything matched and after Lilith had left him alone in what she had called a Labyrinth, he had soon figured out that yes…Yes this was precisely what she had called it.

 

A giant maze of nothing.

 

Peter tried to make sense of it. Tried to find similarities, differences, a way out and yet it was endless. It all felt relatively pointless and like the walls were running together in a smooth smothering sort of way. Peter stopped in some instances, screamed upward into the twilight sky and only an echo answered him. Sometimes he screamed profanities, frustration – sometimes he screamed pleads and sometimes he screamed names. It depended on the name, but he never screamed Lilith’s unless it was followed by some sort of insult. It wasn’t in Peter’s personality, but he was so angry – so hurt. He could hardly comprehend how he had gotten to that point.

 

Right…Selling one’s soul often did that.

 

It often found a person in such a predicament.

 

Peter had questions on the very tip of his tongue, shouts, wails, and he turned corners. It was as if he could hear voices in the distance and yet it was simultaneously silent because that crying was so far away it barely registered in his head. It was almost like tinnitus and Peter found himself stumbling in a panic, like a child lost in a grocery as he turned yet another corner that looked the same as all the others, almost dizzy and disoriented.

 

“Okay!” Peter yelled upward, “Okay! That’s enough! Why am I here!?”

 

And still the silence answered him. The flecks pricked off in the light, Peter felt smothered as he slammed a hand flat into the wall, and turned, placing the other in the exact position before leaning his forehead into the stone and vines. Peter inhaled deeply, trying to calm his fear and frustration before he growled out, “Let me out…I don’t understand the point of this…”

 

No instructions. Nothing. Just a welcome and then he had been left alone to figure it out on his own. To piece something together that made no sense, like trying to tape something that needed super glue or vise versa. An edge puzzle piece put into the middle of a photo and Peter was nauseated as he looked back upward, not shouting this time, but asking through gritted teeth, “What do you want from me?”

 

Then…almost as if it answered all of his questions…the silence broke.

 

Replaced by a low growling.

 

Peter blinked, confused, thinking it was coming from above him. But suddenly he stepped from the wall, head yanking in the direction to his right. Down, looming around the corner were two figures. Not human, but more so resembling giant hounds…And yet their eyes were red, flaming – not just glowing but actual flickers from candles and Peter felt his stomach drop as they snarled, mouths oozing saliva and teeth baring towards him.

 

Dogs. Really, really big dogs with fire in their eyes.

 

Something out of a horror movie. Or childhood stories, hellhounds and monsters and demons from television. Peter swallowed thickly, and blinked, mouth gaping open as he took several strides backward and he realized why people in movies hesitated to run because suddenly he was encased with such shock the idea of even sprinting away was too heavy on his muscles, on his bones, and he felt relatively weighed down with the horror of it. A few more steps back, Peter swallowed thickly and then inhaled.

 

Peter knew he should run, but the dogs beat him to it, sprinting towards him down the straightaway, huffing and puffing as they came towards him.

 

Finally, Peter whirled on his heels, stumbling and then scurrying away.

 

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit –“


	16. A Kingdom by the Sea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Humans have such small minds, desiring things of metal and paper. What I charge is much more valuable. In order for me to bring you across, you must sacrifice something to me…”
> 
> Tony didn’t know why, but his mind immediately went to limbs and he decided his left foot was the most useless…
> 
> “A good memory.”

Peter ran.

 

He ran and ran and ran, and he couldn’t remember the last time he had to go so long in a full sprint, but even with his enhanced abilities it felt like he was dying. It felt like his chest was exploding, his ribs were opening. An urge to vomit and he thought, if he was supposed to be dead, why in the hell was he in so much pain and why was running so hard? Each corner he took, he feared a dead end. He feared a wall or something that would stop him from running from both of the creatures chomping at his heels, quite literally, in the background. Breathing heavily, or maybe it was him, maybe he had run so much he sounded like a monster.

 

There was only so fast he could go after running so long. The creatures didn’t seem interested in stopping and Peter wasn’t either, but his body and his muscles were. He figured if someone wanted to torture another person, they could always run them to death. Peter rounded another corner, the intention to keep going, but after moving just a few more feet forward, he realized he was being met with a large wall that was climbing upward with vines. Peter hardly glanced over his shoulder – a split second decision. He didn’t have much time for more than that.

 

He jumped…And latched on.

 

Peter clamored upward, trying to climb higher and higher. His fingers struggled to grasp and his feet couldn’t get footholds, and maybe he didn’t have his abilities inside of the maze because climbing used to feel a whole lot easier when he was ‘alive’ so to speak. Peter fought, up and up and up – until a burning pain shot across his back and he let out a scream, turning just enough to look down below him.

 

One of the hounds had jumped, swiping across his back, opening the skin he was sure as he felt warm liquid seep down his skin. He continued climbing, kicking outward when a head chomped at his foot and making contact – knocking the creature back down. Peter went upward, even if the walls seemed endless, climbing them was pointless, but eventually he stopped when he realized the animals could no longer reach him.

 

His chest heaved, both from pain, from bleeding, from running. He ached all over.

 

Peter shut his eyes, clinging to the wall. He leaned his head forward and pressed against it.

 

…

 

Tony didn’t like to describe hope as anything more than something that tended to lead to more pain. More suffering, more open fields of potential for things to go wrong and to be let down. It all intermingled and Tony ignored it like it was nothing by a blip in his life, something to draw him back from the task at hand – but hell, it had a way to motivate him. It had a way of making him feel hopeful like he was on the verge of figuring something else out. Sometimes he forgot what hope felt like, but then, sitting in that room with those people – he finally knew.

 

He knew hope was going to get him killed.

 

They had wheeled in the two tables. One for him, one for Peter’s corpse. He didn’t look so blue now, more like a sheet and Tony kept his eyes averted just to be sure he didn’t stare too long at the thing that was breaking him on the inside. Sometimes it led to darkness. Watching Peter be in the coma compared to this – hardly – because at least then Peter’s chest had been rising and falling, he wasn’t so motionless. Tony kept looking away, then looking back, and looking away again because it felt like abandoning him.

 

Pepper was standing close by where Tony was leaning against the table he would soon die on.

 

She looked distressed, Strange having just explained the plan to her while Steve, Natasha, and Bucky stood near the door. Sam Wilson was close by along with May and God, May. The hope was getting to her even more. She kept looking around, wide eyed, as if she knew things were going to be okay and he didn’t know how she could feel that way. How she could look so sure. But worried all at the same time, different from Pepper’s worried – frazzled. That was the best way to describe his wife. She was completely frazzled.

 

Strange and Wong looked even more frazzled by her endless list of questions.

 

She was running her hands over her temples before she breathed, “Wait, wait, wait…Go back through it again. You’re going to – you’re going to kill him and what? Send him to Hell? I don’t understand what’s happening here.”

 

“We’ve been over it three times,” Strange muttered. Pepper shot him a warning look and his back straightened immediately. Tony almost laughed at the sight, Pepper didn’t ease her blows for anyone. Her power knew no bounds and Tony looked away to hide his laugh, because he knew his wife was terrified, and truthfully, he was too. He was scared to fucking death about what was going to happen. But there was nothing better than seeing Strange about to shit himself and for some reason it felt vaguely deserved. Tony couldn’t help it – the way he still blamed Strange for allowing Peter to snap his fingers, for knowing so much, for even having an inkling things were going to be okay and not telling them before Tony was having a mental breakdown.

 

Strange sighed, “Sorry. Alright…I’ll go over it again. Peter is…essentially dead, but only because his soul has been removed from his body. It’s being kept in Lilith’s Basket, which is his current existence. Wong and I are going to open the Basket, and send Tony in to retrieve the boy and once he is removed and brought back to this reality, he should retake his original form inside of himself.”

 

“Why Tony?” Pepper blinked, voice shaking, “I…I want Peter to be rescued. For everyone, for Tony, for May…But this seems like something you two sorcerers would be more equipped to handle, I mean…Being transferred to an alternate reality – a ‘fold’ like you said earlier. It’s…”

 

Tony spoke, “Pep.”

 

She yanked her head in his direction and Tony continued, “The person going in has to have some sort of attachment to the soul, otherwise we’d be jumping into a haystack without any idea where the needle is. This should lead me right to him.”

 

May stepped forward and announced, “I could go in.”

 

“No,” Tony stated bluntly, “No May…Just…We gotta make sure you’re here for the kid when he gets back. We don’t know what’s inside of there, and someone has to take care of him –“

 

May scoffed, “You have a family too.”

 

“I have to do this,” Tony snapped, sounding vehement and almost snarling. He regretted it instantly, the room fell uncomfortably silent. He worried maybe they would think he wasn’t in the right headspace to be doing this but he had to. He had to be the one to do it. Tony cleared his throat awkwardly, before gesturing towards Strange, “Besides. We have a plan of attack already put into place. I might be going in alone at first, but I won’t stay that way for long.”

 

Steve shook his head, “What does that mean?”

 

They looked at each other. It was weird, all of them together, discussing some plan of attack. Tony had left the Avengers behind after Thanos. Had turned his back on it, but it felt like he was constantly being sucked back in. He supposed he would never be able to leave – not as long as people he cared about were involved. Particularly Peter. Even Steve, who had shoved a damned shield in his chest. They had gone to war together. They had defeated Thanos together, or really, Peter had when he had snapped his fingers. Life was just that and they were friends, even if Bucky Barnes was standing in the room.

 

Bucky Barnes had been there too.

 

He had been fighting with them too.

 

Tony blinked, then looked down, shrugging his shoulders.

 

“You’ll see,” Tony replied, “It’s…tentative. But we need to hurry.”

 

Before anyone could say anything else, Strange nodded his head, “Yes…time is not on our side. Lilith will be playing games, I’m sure, Peter is something new to torment and we want to get to him before she has manages to do lasting damage on him or his mind.”

 

“His mind?” May stepped closer, she seemed to be getting closer and closer until she was standing directly to Pepper’s right side. She went on, “What would happen to his mind?”

 

Wong and Strange stared. Maybe it was just a silent understanding, because May seemed to realize. Torture. Lilith would want to torture Peter, and people didn’t typically come out of such things unscathed. They would need to hurry, to avoid any lasting effects, so Tony clapped his hands together and announced, grabbing the attention of the room, “Then we shouldn’t just sit on our thumbs, right? Get me in there.”

 

He hesitated, before turning himself on the table. He looked at Pepper, making eye contact and they stared a few moments before he breathed out slowly and shook his head.

 

“No goodbyes,” Tony ordered.

 

Like the rescuer she was, she nodded in return.

 

“No goodbyes.”

 

Tony would not be able to recount what followed. His heart thudded in his chest as he laid back but he didn’t allow his mind time to go to all of the dark places it wanted to roam to. It wanted to do everything, under and over and through. Tony wasn’t willing to make himself sick off of it, it was almost like he was being sent to space again – a vast unknown and he had always been so scared of space. At least it felt like always. He supposed the terror had only presented itself after everything that happened in New York. When he had looked up into the wormhole and had seen the potential for their demise. Had known what was coming and no one believing him. He laid back, resisted the urge to give a thumbs up to Pepper like he had done when he got the shrapnel out of his chest because now it held too close of a connotation with Peter.

 

Two hands touched the sides of his head. When he looked up, he saw Strange.

 

“Beam me up, Strange,” Tony said, and he didn’t miss the way Strange rolled his eyes.

 

Maybe he really was only a cheesy one liner.

 

The hands pressed down. Tony didn’t look at Pepper, but he wished he had. Maybe if he died in there he could have her face in his memory forever, like going into the blackhole and having her on screen, looking at her, and wishing she had picked up the phone. Wishing he could have heard her one last time. How unfair. But this time he made the conscious decision. He didn’t want her last memory of him to be the worry in his eyes.

 

But it was for the kid.

 

Peter.

 

The hands pressed harder. Tony thought, and he wondered if this was how Peter had felt right before leaving them. Afraid when Strange and Wong both opened their mouths, when the pressure got heavier, and then painful and Tony – Tony didn’t know if he screamed or not. There was only the bright flash. Not of pain, not of agony, but of falling and falling. As if he had been dropped from an airplane towards a waiting ground, something that welcomed him like pain, but he didn’t really know, maybe it wouldn’t hurt at all when he hit it. Maybe it would only feel like fire shooting up his spine and into him.

 

They were chanting and he was silent.

 

Then there was red.

 

…

 

Peter hid.

 

A hand over his mouth, crouched down, ducked in a corner between leaves, vines, squished inside with the hopes of nothing finding him. Sweat was sticking to his forehead, hair, clothes to his body and his back burned as the salt went into the wounds and he knew he was bleeding still from the poignant smell of blood filling his nose and running through it like that was what was bleeding, like it was on his tongue. As if he could taste it.

 

He pressed his hand harder into his mouth, shutting his eyes. His heart wouldn’t stop racing, he couldn’t stop shaking from the pain, he wished he could calm and just breathe but it felt far too improbable to be able to do such a thing. All he could hear was his heart racing in his ears, the blood draining from his face and his hands and he felt light headed and nauseated all at the same time.

 

Once again, he wondered how being dead made it possible to feel such things.

 

Slowly he leaned backward, wincing when his wounds touched the wall behind him. His eyes felt heavy, and his body was weak. Either from running or the injury, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t sure he could even run anymore. If it came down to it, he hoped he could – but that idea felt so far away and pushed in the back of his mind. He hoped and prayed to whatever was out there that he wouldn’t have to, that the dogs were gone, that they had lost interest in him. Feverish, shaking, sweating – it felt like he was dying. Maybe he was bleeding more than he thought, maybe that was why the smell was so strong, or maybe it was already infected in just the mere hours he had been in there.

 

He didn’t know, he didn’t know.

 

Peter plopped less than gracefully onto his side, hiding behind the leaves and the vines as he curled into a ball, pulling his knees to his chest like a small child in a duck and cover drill. Hiding under a desk, but grass instead poked into his skin, made him itchy and he exhaled, chest almost spasming as he fought the urge to have a meltdown over what had transpired. The last time his entire body had hurt like that – he was pretty sure was after fighting Thanos. After being shot at, after curling up and putting his hands over his head while everything rained down on top of him.

 

_Aunt May caressed his face._

_Mister Stark was dead. The bed was swallowing Peter whole from where he sat, his back against his headboard and his face bruised and body battered. Aunt May had tears in her eyes, she had been crying, they had been gone so long. Peter was choking on his insides. He couldn’t – he couldn’t hardly process what he had witnessed._

_“Honey…I’m so sorry.”_

_Peter knew she was, but he wished she wasn’t. He wished he was alone._

God, he’d give anything not to be alone.

 

Peter shut his eyes tightly and pretended.

 

…

 

Tony didn’t slam breathless into the ground like he had thought he would. The falling sensation in his stomach disappeared, and he no longer felt like he was plummeting from the very top of a roller coaster. Instead now it was emptiness, the red faded to a vague orange, the world opening into that color. Like a world on fire, in the background – standing in a mountain as it was engulfed in the distance, but there were no flames to speak of. It wasn’t how he imagined Hell to be. It wasn’t what he thought he was going to see when he opened his eyes.

 

Instead, he was on the shore of a lake, kissed with that amber hue.

 

The ground was made of stones, the water lapped at the edges and begged to make entry. Tony stumbled just a bit in surprise, his new surroundings causing his head to spin as if in shock, but other than that, it wasn’t painful like he had imagined. Something about being plopped through dimensions made him think he was about to experience something vast and dark, and while it certainly wasn’t bright, it certainly didn’t seem like something he would think was Hell. Like something that Lilith would create.

 

It smelled of a fireplace. Like the fire was imminent and yet it never presented itself. No threat, no nothing, just that world around him that he tried to make sense of and yet he couldn’t. Tony swallowed, flecks of something twinkling in the air as he was encased into that twilight, like the sun was perpetually setting and Tony didn’t know how long he stood there, in shock, not knowing where he was and vaguely forgetting what he was doing there.

 

Plan, plan, stick to the plan.

 

But the plan was supposed to bring him straight to Peter. And Peter was nowhere to be seen, at least Tony didn’t think so. But as if out of nowhere, even though Tony was almost positive he had scanned the shoreline, a voice broke through the quiet of the water knocking and a rough, low tone tore through it all…

 

“Who are you?”

 

It was…almost a daunting question. Like there was a threat behind it. Not of violence, but as if the person already knew. There was a man on the shore, standing in a boat. He had a long stick in his hands, part of it in the water from where he stood inside. His face looked old and sharp, though it was still drooping under his eyes. His clothes were black and swallowing, eating what appeared to be a frail body underneath. Tony gulped, glanced around as if he thought the man in the boat was speaking to someone else. Soon, he cleared his throat, approaching as the rock crunched below his feet. Tony was hesitant in each step, but it didn’t look like the guy was about to beat him with a stick so…

 

“Me?” Tony questioned when he got closer.

 

“Is there anyone else here?” Though the person lacked sarcasm, Tony still felt the irritation it often left and he resisted the urge to roll his eyes. But he didn’t know if this was a demon, or what, so he kept his eyes ahead and instead shifted awkwardly to hide the anxiety behind a sense of social displeasure.

 

“Can’t say there is,” Tony put his hands in his pockets, “Just me. Maybe you can help me.”

 

The man replied, “I do not help the living.”

 

“That’s nice to know I’m still alive,” Tony patted his chest, “Or, relatively alive after being beamed up. Anyway, I’m really going to have to insist that you help me. See, I’m looking for a friend.”

 

His false confidence was shaky. Even with demons he was hiding behind a façade of bravery, but fuck, his hands were sweating, and his brow had begun to do the same as he straightened his chin to hide the uncontrollable with the controllable. Tony pursed his lips when the man said nothing in return and continued, “His name is Peter Parker. About this high –“ He held up his hand a little below himself, “ – asks a lot of questions. Pouts when he doesn’t get his way.”

 

The man tilted his head, narrowing his eyes as if Tony was an idiot and Tony fought the urge to push him out of his boat and take the stupid stick himself, but he had no idea where he was going. There was an eerie quiet as the man looked up at the orange sky, blinking several times before he looked back down, expression knowing.

 

“The boy you speak of is a prisoner of Lilith’s labyrinth.”

 

“Right…” Great, fucking great, “Think you could show me where that is?”

 

The man stepped back, as if inviting Tony into the boat. Tony looked at him, surprised, before he started to step forward. In retrospect, it was probably not intelligent to step into the boat with a man he didn’t know in a world of demons, but a hand raised and stopped him in his tracks. Tony looked at him, waiting, and the man finally explained, “My voyages come at a price.”

 

“Well unfortunately I left my wallet at home,” Tony gritted out.

 

“Not mortal money,” The man sighed, finally looking irritated, “Humans have such small minds, desiring things of metal and paper. What I charge is much more valuable. In order for me to bring you across, you must sacrifice something to me…”

 

Tony didn’t know why, but his mind immediately went to limbs and he decided his left foot was the most useless…

 

“A good memory.”

 

Not what he expected.

 

Tony blinked, licked his lips and questioned, “A good memory?”

 

“I collect them,” The man answered simply, reaching into the swallowing black robe and pulling out a small vial, “You offer the memory, and I take it. It no longer exists within you after that. You will no longer recall it.”

 

That was far from what Tony was thinking.

 

It was like something out a story book. Trading a good thing for a life, and Tony’s mind wavered on it a bit. Not hesitation – but just confusion and amazement. The fact that he was being asked for such a thing, something so personal, something that was held so deep within himself and his mind wandered to what he would trade. God, he’d trade anything to save Peter. He would give up anything if it meant Peter could come back, if he could get through this, if he could be a normal kid again and get to go to school and see his friends, rejoin society and be fucking happy instead of mourning like in his old timeline and marked like in this other one. Tony wavered, blinking.

 

Thinking.

 

_Tony looked at his father._

_“Let me tell you. That kid's not even here yet, and there's nothing I wouldn't do for him.”_

The memory, maybe it wasn’t even his to have. After all, his father hadn’t even known it was him there. And it hadn’t forgiven everything that his father had done, the childhood of trauma he had endured. In that moment, it had made him feel accepted. It had made him feel less left behind, less looked down on. It was like seeing that film years ago, of his father calling him his greatest creation. It was something that made Howard seem human and yet Tony still had questions. Questions he didn’t understand –

 

Why had none of that been expressed when Howard was alive?

 

The memory, he selfishly clung to it because it made him see Howard differently. Made him feel more like himself as a father, his love that existed, but Tony had never been told. That was the point. Tony’s father had never given him the benefit of letting him know that these feelings existed.

 

Why hadn’t he?

 

Tony did not hesitate. Because if it came between giving up a memory that shouldn’t have existed and saving Peter, fuck he was going to save Peter every single time. Because Peter – Peter was alive, had the potential to be and memories were just useless in a way. Sure, they molded them into who they were, but Tony had gone fifty or so years without such a memory and things had turned out the way they were meant to. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. Only Peter and saving him and Tony cleared his throat.

 

“Alright. Deal. Take it and bring me to him.”

 

The man stepped forward, vial still in hand and maybe Tony was expecting some Harry Potter shit, like he had to cry a tear to produce the memory, but instead it was held below his ear. The man uttered a few words in a language Tony couldn’t decipher, not French or Italian he would have recognized those. Instead the words rolled out, Tony felt the slightest sense of vertigo and then it was over…The man pulled the vial back and it was glowing a bright golden color, almost mimicking the orange in a way. A burning ember.

 

“We shall proceed,” The man hummed, turning and pocketing the vial. Tony inhaled, and the man ordered, “Sit.”

 

That caused hesitation, but ultimately he sank onto the wooden seat behind him as the man started to move the boat with the stick, pushing them off the shore. They glided on the orange water, and Tony felt as if he wasn’t floating at all, the water undisturbed by anything – not even the boat as they went towards the distant brightness not far from them. Bright colored, all warm, calling them forward and Tony supposed that was where they were going. Tony cleared his throat awkwardly…It felt odd, having a memory he could not recall. He knew it had been extracted, but what it had been, he did not know.

 

He didn’t care.

 

Not anymore, not really.

 

 

“So…” Tony started, shaking his leg awkwardly, “You always here?”

 

The man answered, not looking back at Tony as he continued to bring them towards the lights and colors, “For eternity.”

 

Tony whistled, “Guess they don’t have a fifty-year plan, huh?”

 

“Quiet.”

 

“Right.”

 

They inched closer, gliding. Tony held his breath the closer they got as he began to make shape of what they were approaching. The bright light was in fact the sky, and the water seemingly disappeared into something else. Tony tilted his head curiously, and the quiet began to shatter in favor of roaring water. The water itself broke off, disappearing in a drop and Tony’s brain tried to process what they were coming towards – though it didn’t completely register until just a few moments before they were close enough for his heart to quicken pace.

 

A waterfall.

 

They were about to go over the edge of a waterfall.  

 

Tony’s stomach dropped. Liked the roller coaster all over again and he stood suddenly, speaking, “Uhhhhh, what the hell is that?”

 

The man glanced back and said, “I suggest you sit back down.”

 

“Are we about to go over that?”

 

“Sit back down.”

 

This time he whirled around, bopping Tony on the head with the stick. Tony fell into the floor of the boat, groaning and holding the side of his head as the man turned his back once more and continued pushing them. Tony tried to clatter to his feet, but movement picked up and he fell back onto his bottom, looking up and seeing they were only mere feet from the roaring edge and the sound of water below caused his blood to run cold. Tony grabbed the edge of the boat and snapped upward, “You jackass! I gave you the memory!”

 

“And I gave my word,” He said over his shoulder, “You will be brought to the boy. It’s why I appeared to you, after all…Your souls are bound.”

 

What?

 

What?

 

Did he know from the beginning?

 

Tony didn’t get to ponder on the information too terribly long because before he could make another rational thought, they were tipping over the edge of the fall, plummeting downward. Tony expected to flip, to be thrown, but instead they just fell as they were and his stomach went into his throat and he screamed, shutting his eyes until he was encased in a cloud of water, swallowing heaps of it and going down, down, down…

 

Then up, up, up…

 

That’s when the slamming happened.

 

Tumbling down into the water was the easy part, even as it poured into his nose. The hard part of catching his breath after hitting the grass below him so hard that he swore it broke every bone in his body, and his head cracked back dizzying him. He coughed, water exiting his nose and mouth as he rolled over to clear his airways. When he opened his eyes, he expecting to see the floor of the boat, expected to see the man he had given a memory to…And yet he saw grass, walls, vines…And a sky of orange, again…Twilight breaking through and blinding him.

 

“Fuck,” Tony groaned, pressing his face downward as he caught his breath. He was getting too old for this bullshit. Slowly he lifted himself to his hands and knees, still ejecting water from his lungs and stomach where he had swallowed it. Finally, he looked around him, taking in the completeness of his surrounding not vague from hitting the ground so hard. It was like an outdoor corridor.

 

Labyrinth…As the hooded man had called it.

 

Lilith’s Labyrinth.

 

Tony repeated again, “Fuck.”

 

Standing to his feet, he swayed slightly, catching himself on the wall. He looked both ways, vast endlessness meeting him and causing him to gape, eyes wide and mouth open. His head was swimming, from the fall, from plummeting. Tony pressed his right hand to the wall, sniffing as he tried to clear his mind and think. A labyrinth. Not his favorite sort of puzzle. Something David Bowie himself would frown upon.

 

Tony’s thoughts clouded over with a strange panic. And he swallowed.

 

“Okay…” He moved, sliding his hand along the way, a simple trick, but the best he could come up with at the moment. Stay to one wall, at least for now. He contemplated shouting for Peter, knowing if he was a prisoner within the maze, he must be close – but as he moved he thought or hoped Lilith wouldn’t know he was there. Of course if she was controlling the maze, she might have already been aware, but he wouldn’t take the risk.

 

Tony continued softly, “Okay, okay…Where are you, kid?”

 

The ground felt perfectly even, it was a lot like some closed off garden, the walls high, and Tony’s stomach churning the thought of how long this could take. He feared too long, and that by the time he got to Peter the kid would be too far gone to reach and he didn’t want that. Strange’s warnings had frightened him and Tony tried not to let his mind go there, but it did. Viciously, in a way he struggled to keep controlled.

 

Find Peter. Find the kid and go.

 

There was something uneasy floating around.

 

Maybe it was just the place they were in. Maybe it was just the fact that some creepy guy in a hood had stolen a memory from him. He didn’t know and a part of him didn’t care much to find out. He wanted all of it to be over as quickly as possible. The nightmare that the past several weeks had been. The way his life had upheaved itself and none of that was Peter’s fault. He couldn’t blame the boy for everything that happened. So much of it…was just a kid being a kid, and wanting to save people he cared about. Tony only wished he had done more to protect him.

 

Had done more to be there for him.

 

There was an opportunity for a second chance, and it was different, it was all going to be different – Tony was going to be different for Peter’s sake, he swore that much to be true and he turned corner after corner, hoping to find some kid that was lost, hoping to find some sign of him and there was nothing. Nothing that he could see anyway and Tony thought – maybe he was on a completely different side of the maze than Peter.

 

Until he saw the blood.

 

At least what he thought was blood.

 

It was shiny against the grass and when Tony kneeled down and touched it, his fingers came back red. Iron, crimson and Tony felt his heart sink and he stood hurriedly, having to fight once more the urge to start screaming and calling Peter’s name over and over again and risk Lilith hearing. But if it was Peter’s blood – he needed to find him soon. If the kid was hurt, apparently they could be harmed where they were and that was nauseating.

 

Tony gulped back vomit.

 

He kept moving.

 

Moving and moving and moving, down each hallway and corridor, around every single turn he could find and he felt a lot like a parent in Walmart, looking down aisles for a missing child, trying not to let the panic set in, and trying to ignore prying eyes that didn’t exist and yet he was still so scared. He was terrified, huffing and puffing around every single corner. Then there was a piece of fabric, then there was more blood then, and then, and then –

 

A foot…peeking out from under a large bundle of vines.

 

A foot.

 

God, he didn’t know why a foot made him feel so afraid.

 

Tony rushed forward, running, sprinting as he slid to his knees. A stop and he immediately began to push the vines away from where the person was laying. He ripped several from the ground, dirt and all, and finally the person was exposed and his eyes landed on Peter’s face. Eyes open, eyes wide and hardly coherent, but wide nonetheless. Just confused and like he had been struck with something. The kid sat up, hands going up in defense and it felt like that day in Germany when Peter had rolled over to see him.

 

_“Same side.”_

Same side, same side, same side –

 

Peter was _alive_. His cheeks were red, his face was awake – Peter was _awake_. A stark contrast from what Tony had seen in the freezer. Peter was different here – alive, alive, alive – that was the only word that flitted through Tony’s mind as he tried to make sense of it, as if it was the most perplexing thing he had ever seen in his life. Seeing the boy, knowing they had a chance, that hopelessness from before melting away to allow that difference, that difference he had been afraid to let himself even consider. Peter Parker, the boy he had solved time travel to save. Peter Parker, the kid who had snapped his fingers.

 

God damn it, there was no doubt in Tony’s mind – if it hadn’t been for Peter…he never would have bothered to try and reverse The Snap.

 

It was the most amazing thing. Worth the sacrifice of a good memory. Worth the sacrifice of everything, just to feel warmth from Peter’s hands, just to see his chest moving up and down. Just to know they had more time, they had a second chance, they had and had and had.

 

“Peter,” Tony breathed, from running and Peter stilled from where Tony had grabbed his wrists. Peter was gasping as well, and it only took a moment before recognition sparked and Tony was startled when arms wrapped tightly around his shoulders without hesitation. As if Peter immediately trusted that it was him there and not someone else, not a monster, not whatever had caused the blood on the ground.

 

“Mister Stark,” It wasn’t an exclamation. Not even close. It was a crack, broken, like Peter had been screaming himself hoarse, “Mister Stark you’re – you’re here.”

 

Tony peered over the kid’s shoulder. Saw where the blood was coming from and he cut the reunion off immediately as worry got a foot hold. Tony tugged away, muttering, “Woah, woah, woah.”

 

He pulled Peter forward in the slightest, taking in his back. Across it were four slash marks, like a tiger or something had come up behind him and taken a large chunk out of his back leaving behind the scratches. Peter winced under his hands and the boy murmured softly, hands beginning to shake and Tony imagined it was from pain where the air was touching through the cuts in his shirt.

 

“Dogs…Big fucking dogs.”

 

“Dogs?” Tony said out loud, brows furrowing, “Dogs did this?”

 

Tony was a little higher on his knees and Peter looked up, swallowing and shaking his head, “They were…they were weird dogs, Mister Stark. Like monsters. I…I got away but only because they lost interest. They were chasing me forever and I never thought – God, I thought they were gonna kill me.”

 

The way the kid’s voice cracked made Tony’s gut wrench. He breathed, reaching out and taking Peter by the shoulders, rubbing gently with his thumbs as he nodded his head, “Okay, okay, okay…So…there are big dogs. Great, we can deal with that. That’s fine, cause I got us a quick ride out of here and we won’t have to –“

 

“Stark.”

 

The voice caused his blood to rush cold.

 

Tony didn’t turn immediately. Instead he continued to hold Peter’s shoulders, noticing the way the boy’s face blanched. He looked into Tony’s eyes, as if pleading and God, he wanted to hug him. To hold him, he had thought he was dead – he had fucking thought he was dead. Gone forever and now he had him back but the voice was there to ruin it again. Slowly, Tony reached out, patting the side of Peter’s face. He didn’t know what was going to come of this. There was a reason there were no goodbyes. Facing Lilith, getting out of her maze…This was it. This was it.

 

Tony stood to his feet, turning. Peter crawled out and did the same, though he struggled more to stand and grabbed a hold of Tony’s wrist to do so. Tony put himself between Peter and the woman standing a few feet away, her face resembling a parent about to scold her children – not a demon that desired to torture them. Tony chewed the inside of his mouth, staring and taking her in, gauging the situation.

 

“Lilith,” He replied, “Fancy seeing you here.”

 

“You’re the one in my home, Stark.”

 

“I knocked,” Tony pursed his lips, “No one answered.”

 

She let out a deep sigh. Tony felt Peter grip his wrist tighter and he wished he could look back, tell the kid it was going to be okay. But the silence was drowning all of them and Tony held back. Didn’t break eye contact with the demon as she stepped forward and questioned, “What are you doing here?”

 

Tony gritted his teeth, “Eh, you know…You took my kid.”

 

“Your kid?” Lilith raised an eyebrow, “Last I checked he was an orphan. An orphan who offered his soul to me. I simply collected his debt and he came to me willingly. So you may want to try again before throwing around such accusations.”

 

“Willingly,” Tony glared, “I don’t think taking advantage of a grieving sixteen-year-old is what we call willingly. Or do they not have those kinds of rules where you’re from?”

 

“I make the rules,” Lilith shrugged, “And he came to me, so I brought him here. He wears my mark, he and I made a deal.”

 

Tony’s heart skipped a beat.

 

“What if I offer you a new deal?”

 

“A new deal…” Lilith echoed and by the way Peter’s hand tightened on his wrist, he knew the kid must have had a feeling Tony was about to offer something very, very stupid. Fingernails dug into his skin, Tony almost flinched.

 

He nodded, “Yeah…A new deal. Remove the kid’s mark…And you can mark me instead.”

 

“Mister Stark!”

 

Tony looked back at the kid just to snap harshly, “Shut up!”

 

He felt guilt bloom, as Peter cringed, looking like he had been struck across the face as his eyes stared back confused. Confused and betrayed, the voice raising completely out of character but Tony looked away – knowing he could only apologize if Peter survived and this was how he had to save him. Tony cleared his throat and tried to sell it, “I mean…The Merchant of Death has got to be worth something, right?”

 

Right.

 

He had to.

 

God, he had to.

 

Lilith seemed to ponder on this. She blinked a few times, looking upward and staring into the twilight sky. As if it held all of the answers, and there was something ironic in that. She swung her shoulders and arms, similar to what a child would do and sometimes she really did resemble someone so young, it was scary. Like all the horror movies with the children being possessed by demons. When Lilith looked back down, a small smile touched her lips and she held out her hand in an offering.

 

“Come.”

 

“Woah, woah,” Tony felt butterflies form, like getting close to ending a business deal when he was just starting out at Stark Industries, figuring out how to trick men twice his age, “I have a request.”

 

“Offerings don’t typically involve requests,” She continued to hold her hand out.

 

Tony shook his head, “This one does…You remove Peter’s mark.”

 

Lilith’s small smile grew bigger and she tilted her head almost innocently, “Do you not trust me, Stark?”

 

He scoffed, “Fuck no.”

 

She hummed, leaving her hand up. Her eyes found Peter’s and Peter looked absolutely sick about the whole situation. She beaconed him forward with a simple wave of her finger and Tony stepped aside to give the kid room to go forward. Peter’s eyes went round, he started shaking his head vehemently and he stepped back, releasing Tony’s wrist as he shouted, “No! Mister Stark I’m not going to let you do this!”

 

“Kid,” Tony tried, but Peter continued.

 

“I’m not going to let you get marked!” Peter’s voice was shrill, “I…I can’t, I…All of this happened because I wanted to save you. I’m not about to ruin it all again. I won’t, I won’t let you…I won’t let you!”

 

Tony didn’t say anything. Instead he reached out, and grabbed Peter arm, moving behind. He was careful of the kid’s back as he used his body to push the kid forward, even though Peter was trying to dig his heels in and go backward. Maybe things were different there – Peter couldn’t overpower him, even if he was putting up a good fight and Lilith seemed to understand Tony’s silent stare because she moved forward, not hesitating to put her hand to Peter’s chest where Tony knew the mark to be.

 

Peter’s chest glowed under his shirt.

 

There was an odd sound, like metal scraping against metal and Peter’s fighting, his squirming where Tony had him pressed to his chest and arms wrapped around him – it stopped. Peter gasped like he had been struck between the shoulder blades or the stomach and his mouth went agape, back arching and body going rigid. His eyes widened and he looked as if he was having some sort of episode before the mark seemingly removed itself…Gone in what looked to be a flash of light and Peter’s body went from rigid to limp, both him and Tony falling down to the ground and into the grass, the kid putting most of his weight on the man.

 

Peter’s chest heaved for oxygen.

 

Tony could have let out a sigh of relief, holding Peter close and…

 

Tony reached out, pulling Peter’s shirt upward, exposing his chest and –

 

It was gone.

 

The mark was gone.

 

“There you go,” Lilith said, silky, “Just as you requested. Now for you.”

 

Tony looked up. He lowered Peter’s shirt slowly, and wrapped an arm across Peter’s chest, holding him close to himself. He pressed his chin to the top of Peter’s head and replied sharply…

 

“Burn in Hell.”

 

There was something satisfying in how her brows furrowed. Tony looked up to the sky and shouted the one word Strange had taught him –

 

“Impetus!”

 

It was a whoosh was wind. Violent, enough to throw Tony back and Peter almost on top of him. Tony held on tight as it came down like a tornado, placing itself between Peter and Lilith. He shielded Peter’s eyes with his hand away from the flying debris that surrounded them and they felt as if they were being blown away in that moment as the wind whirled around them and almost sucked them into the vortex above.

 

When it cleared, Lilith was on the ground…

 

And Strange stood in the place of the vortex.

 

Strange whirled to look at both Tony and Peter. He held out a hand and shouted the order:

 

“Hurry! Wong can only hold it open for so long!”

 

Tony pushed. Peter first, causing the kid to struggle to his feet and Tony followed in suit. Strange whirled on Lilith who was quickly getting to her feet as well, her eyes blazing, turning a coal color and the area around them bulging with veins. Strange whirled his hand, the sky opening back up, the wind igniting and he held tightly to Peter’s arm, refusing to let go…Never again. It slowly made a descent towards them, but when he looked back towards Lilith her hands were becoming vaguely orange and Tony felt his stomach drop.

 

“Oh shit,” Tony hissed, putting Peter behind himself.

 

Just as her hand shot out, a long blaze of flames following, Strange’s hand shot out as well. Sparks flew from his fingers and as soon as the flame touched it, it bounced back as quickly as a bullet, slamming into her abdomen. His mouth opened, a horrific wail erupting as a bright flash filled the air and swarmed over them. Tony felt the heat of the fire, just as the three of them were swallowed by the vortex in the sky, eating them alive and sucking them upward, away from the blast that had ripped Lilith to shreds from the inside out – burned from her own hands.

 

Tony had hoped to do it himself…

 

But being burned by her own blast was ironic enough for Tony to forgive it.

 

…

 

Tony came back sputtering.

 

Not like being thrown from the water. Not like resurfacing. But like his heart erupting in his chest. Air filling his lungs. Life returning to his eyes and his cheeks and his face and being welcomed into a world of the living for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. Warmth in his limbs. His fingers. Eyes awakening to bright lights and surviving. No longer drowning beneath waves of being unsure.

 

Alive.

 

Alive.

 

Peter.

 

Tony fell off the table.

 

There were voices everywhere. Surrounding him, hands trying to scrape him up off the ground like he had fallen and broken. But Tony grabbed the table he had been on, struggled to his feet stubbornly, like returning from space. Staying conscious just long enough to give Steve a piece of his mind and then falling out. Now, he had to cling to wakefulness. He had to know – had to reassure himself this had worked. That their efforts, trying and succeeding, that they had done what needed to be done. That their world hadn’t completely collapsed.

 

That Peter Parker was alive. One of the larger pieces of Tony’s existence.

 

_I lost the kid._

_I lost the kid._

Fuck, he’d never understand why that clung so tightly to the inner most parts of him, but he couldn’t relive it. It had to have worked. It had to have worked. It was so fast, he could hardly believe it. It was – he had been there and then it had been over and he stood to his feet, someone holding onto him and he saw Steve trying to help him, but the world was blurry at the edges and he heard shouting. Familiar and when he turned towards it, on the other table, the metal table where life had been sucked out of them, there was Peter Parker. The kid – the one they had lost.

 

_I lost the kid._

_“Tony… **we** lost.”_

_Not Peter though – God, that had been the worst fear. Losing Peter. From the moment he saw him on that stupid ship._

Peter Parker was sitting up.

 

Gasping.

 

Alive.

 

Strange was holding his arms. Holding him in place, and Peter was crying. But crying meant alive, it wasn’t the silence of entering a world turning blue and purple around the edges, it was life gripping him in one seizure. Peter was there and he was breathing and he was – he wasn’t lost.

 

Peter just _was_. _Is_.

 

Tony stumbled, Steve helped him towards the kid, though he tried to stabilize him. Tony grabbed a hold of the kid’s metal table and Strange was on the other side and Peter looked at him, confused, wide eyed. He looked ill, Tony felt ill, they had been dead after all. Their bodies had been left behind. Tony was hopeless. That was different now, when he reached out, wrapped his arms around Peter’s trembling frame and he hugged him tightly. Peter’s fingers wrapped into the back of his shirt and Peter, his sobbing, not agony but just as if he was feverish – was crying. But was alive.

 

That was the word he kept holding onto. It was just so amazing.

 

Tony grabbed the nape of Peter’s neck, maybe he was pulling the kid’s hair he didn’t know, he hoped he wasn’t hurting him. The world was spinning, he knew what it felt like right before passing out, Tony was edging into it. But he clung to consciousness just long enough to say quietly…

 

“I got you, Peter.”

 

Tony so rarely said the kid’s name. Maybe he should say it more.

 

Then, his body went limp…And consciousness ceased.

 

…

 

Aunt May was there.

 

Peter had screamed when Mister Stark had passed out. They moved him to a room. Aunt May laid with him, running her fingers through his hair and it reminded him of when he tried to kill himself. That was the bluntness of the thought that hurt him. He had tried to kill himself – and there he was, after everyone had worked so hard to save him. And Peter was endlessly sorry.

 

The lights were off – She was trying to lull him. Peter could still feel the pain of the slices across his back and yet they were gone. Completely and totally gone. Like they had never been there – along with the mark on his chest and everything else. He felt as if none of it had existed in the first place and maybe he had been dreaming. But he hadn’t. Mister Stark was asleep. Recovering and everyone had reassured him he was okay. Peter – Peter was supposed to be doing the same.

 

May whispered it…

 

“You should sleep.”

 

“I know,” Peter took comfort in the smell of her perfume, the familiarity of it, “I just…do you think he’s okay?”

 

She sighed, “Strange and Banner checked on him, they said he’s fine. What the two of you went through…It was strenuous.”

 

Peter didn’t have to be told twice. His muscles felt like fire and stone all at the same time as he stared at the wall. His back was to her, where she was propped against the headboard and he pretended to be alone inside of his head. The world was crashing, and yet it felt like healing. The mark was gone – Peter was safe and yet, he still clung to the fact that maybe he wasn’t even meant to be there in the first place. He wasn’t from there. And he had hurt this timeline so much, put these people he loved through so much to rescue him. Being alive, everyone being okay, it didn’t make up for his shortcomings.

 

His eyes filled, they were blurry and he turned, burying his face in the pillow. The hand in his hair paused, and Peter muttered, voice breaking, “I’m sorry.”

 

May shifted, “For what?”

 

Peter chewed the inside of his mouth.

 

“For scaring you.”

 

There was a pause of silence. Not uncomfortable, but just as if she was deliberating on what to say within herself, and it wasn’t long before she was tugging on him gently, ordering in a voice that he was pretty sure only she could produce, “Hey…look at me.”

 

Peter rolled over, looking up. She was there, and she existed, and Peter was so terribly sorry. To her. To Tony. For everyone that had tried to help him and everyone he had let down during this process. It felt undeniably weighty. She reached down, taking his face, and it reminded him of that day the ferry boat had nearly sank. The day Mister Stark had yelled and Peter had realized just how young he was – that what he was doing…was very adult. And maybe he had no business doing it in the first place. Because he had been nothing without the suit – but truthfully, the suit had done nothing against Thanos. The suit hadn’t made him do what he did.

 

Peter tried to be brave as she cradled his face, but he realized he didn’t have to be. Not with May there, not with Tony down the hallway.

 

They would always come for him.

 

“You acted out of love,” May said, “And grief. I think sometimes even the wise don’t understand how to behave in the face of those emotions…So don’t be sorry.”

 

They weren’t emotions. They were existences.

 

Peter had only just realized it.


	17. Epilogues Cure Sea Sickness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We won, Mister Stark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO  
> IS THIS REALLY THE END?  
> I can hardly believe this. Like, this was my grief story. My way of dealing with Endgame, of crying and grieving and getting over Tony Stark. And now we're here! At the freaking end!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What an emotional rollercoaster. I cannot thank you all enough for sticking with me through this whole clusterfluck of emotions and me being a baby over my man's demise. Here we are, the cherry on top.  
> I love you guys, oooooh how I love you guys.❤❤❤❤❤

It had been a long while.

 

After the first night, it was the second, Peter decided – after they had returned from The Basket. After Lilith was dead, after Mister Stark had woken up the next day and had been alive and Peter was so relieved, he had turned his face away and cried – Peter knew things were going to be alright. A growth in their paradise, that was not perfect but an improvement of what had transpired and the horror of everything. Peter had smiled at Mister Stark, the man had squeezed his arm to make sure he was real. Peter couldn’t remember the last time he had felt okay inside of himself, and hadn’t had that primal urge to run out into the street. Fight or flight, and flighting from his body – leaving it behind had seemed easier. So this felt new.

 

It had been a long while.

 

That night, later, he and Sam and Bucky had played Monopoly. Sam had lost, but only because Bucky had found a way to cheat with the money and it was ridiculous. Peter had found it so funny. Had laughed so hard his stomach had hurt. He had been laughing, then crying, and he thought – _God why was that happening to him_? He remembered Sam and Bucky looking worried, but then he stopped and he promised, he promised the tears and the sobbing was relief, because it had been too long since he had felt such joy. He hadn’t laughed like that in a while, it was even harder than when he had laughed at them fighting over the shirt.

 

It had been a long while.

 

Uncharted waters of realizing his suffering had wasted a lot of time and he had to catch up. Because this was his life now, this world he was in with Mister Stark, Aunt May, and everyone else. This world he was in was his now and there was no going back to the life before. He would have to adjust to the way things were. A world where Clint Barton had fallen to his death, a world where Peter had snapped his fingers, a world where _this and that and this and that_ were different, and he was just trying to learn what he could without panicking about the prospect of it. The night they had talked about it, Peter hadn’t started gasping for air where he sat in front of Mister Stark and Aunt May and Pepper Potts, going over information that he had to learn now. Things that had changed. He didn’t freak out.

 

It had been a long while.

 

And that morning, when his aunt had woken him up, and when he had been told to get dressed. When he had told everyone goodbye and had climbed into the car with Mister Stark, Happy Hogan, and Aunt May…Peter realized they were finally going to set him free into the world. There were a lot of hoops to hurdle through first. A lot of things to go over. Stuff to talk about, and he tried not to be overwhelmed, but he felt more relieved and happy and excited. More than anything those were the things that clung to him under his skin and he clung back to the comfort it offered him when Mister Stark squeezed his shoulder tightly and offered caring.

 

It had been a long while.

 

The drive from Upstate to New York City felt quick, quicker than it really was even after they stopped at a drive-thru and got cheeseburgers upon Mister Stark’s request because he claimed cheeseburgers could fix everything and anything. Peter inhaled his, enjoyed the food and savored it, his body finally feeling like it could relax enough to enjoy a meal and he hadn’t felt that way since before The Snap, the one from his original timeline, at least he thought so. Sometimes the intermingling thoughts confused him, Other Peter and him all in a whirlwind. The scars on his arm remained, the lightning shapes stretching out across his skin where the burns had healed but those had been left behind. Veins and vines pumping life into him. For the first time in a long time Peter felt alive.

 

It had been a long while.

 

They got home. And this – God this, this, this had been all he had wanted ever since he had taken those pills. Ever since he had started behaving with the notion that if he just did what everyone said, he could go home, he could rejoin his life and his friends, and he could be happy. And Peter remembered that day at the Compound when he had been so desperate, so fucking desperate to go home and he had looked into Aunt May’s eyes and there had been pain that at the time he was much too blind to see because his own suffering was screaming too loud to hear anyone else’s.

 

_“I wanna come home. I think I can now, you know? Because, things are getting better. The past few months, I’ve been doing good, Aunt May. I’ve done everything you guys have told me to do. I listen.”_

_“Peter, that doesn’t – honey, doing everything you’re told, going through the motions, that doesn’t mean you’re better.”_

It had been a long while.

 

Now there were no motions to go through. No way to fake it, and nothing to fake. The weightiness in his life, the things tying around his chest and neck and smothering him were slowly sinking away. Not gone completely, he would probably battle it for the rest of his life, the same way Mister Stark did, but he was going to improve and get better and learn and Peter only hesitated a moment when Mister Stark climbed out of the backseat and held out a hand to help Peter get out. He took it, and stood, looking up at the apartment building, his brain screaming at him.

 

_Home, home, home, home._

 

It had been a long while.

 

So fucking long.

 

Happy got his bags. Patted his shoulder, they all went up the elevator together and it smelled strongly of perfume and Peter felt it was so human for it to be like that. Nothing was new, it was an old building and he was ecstatic because the smell of new paint had become so second nature in the Compound in both timelines he had almost forgotten what old lady smelled like and he never thought he would miss something like that. That he would miss the smell of fried food, or cigarettes, or even shoes left in the hallway. Because antiseptic, Clorox, paint – that was all that had consumed him for weeks and weeks and he was free – he was free.

 

All of this screamed pre-snap.

 

Home.

 

As soon as they walked in, May apologized, “Sorry it’s a mess. I haven’t been home in a while, I’m sure the milk in the fridge is awful – oh! But I do have coffee. You boys want me to make us some? I know you’ve got a long drive back so maybe get some energy in your systems.”

 

Happy of course nodded his head. Peter noticed his eagerness to please Aunt May and it made Peter kind of weirded out but he ignored it anyhow and turned his back. The room seemed to blur around the edges, not like fainting, but welcoming him to that bedroom door just across from where they were standing in the kitchen. Once a place of sanctuary and games and late night parties with Ned. Plotting new school years and how they were going to buy the newest Lego sets and where Uncle Ben used to read to him or where Aunt May would messily fold his clothes and make him help, because they were his clothes after all.

 

Peter grabbed his suitcase and walked straight for the door, ignoring the others and their chatting, though in retrospect he wasn’t sure if Mister Stark was speaking at all.

 

A world of empty chests – where no marks were found and a safe bedroom, not a hospital room or a bathroom in an apartment where he had dumped pills into himself. Where Doctor Strange had saved him and Peter remembered his face as they were leaving the Compound, remembered looking at him and wondering if he knew to the extent he had saved his life in the other timeline. Maybe he did, because he had patted Peter’s shoulder, and had spoken as if an oracle.

 

_“I was wrong to regret you. I believe now I made the right decision.”_

Fuck, Peter almost bawled and he didn’t even know why.

 

Peter dragged his bag inside, over the bump in the entrance. He flipped the light switch on and the first thing he noticed was that his bedroom looked just like the one in the other timeline. Peter released his suitcase, stepping in, the same floorboard making the same sound and his heart fluttered because of that and he didn’t know why. His hand slid over the dusty desk, nothing had been touched in weeks. Maybe years, God he didn’t know. He just knew this was home and it was safe. He grabbed the mouse on the computer, wiggled it just a bit, but it didn’t light up and the whole system must have been turned off because –

 

“Thing is outdated now,” Tony said.

 

Peter’s head whipped in his direction. Tony was there, in the doorway. Leaning against it with his arms over his chest. Tony gestured to the computer, “Outdated. I did my best to keep everything as it was, after you and your aunt disappeared.”

 

“You…you kept our apartment?” Peter questioned softly.

 

“I did,” Tony inhaled deeply, putting his hands in his pockets as he entered the room further and came to stand just a few feet from Peter, “Just in case…I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but…I wanted it here. Waiting. I didn’t mess with anything, Scout’s Honor. But of course the computer…like I said its old so might get you something new.”

 

Peter swallowed thickly. He looked back at the system and he didn’t know why such a deeply engrained feeling had washed over him so heavily. Time trickled. Peter felt words forming and when they did he wasn’t expecting them to be what they were.

 

“I remember when you gave it to me.”

 

“I do too,” Tony replied, “You freaked out. Would have thought I had just gifted you a free ride to MIT or something you were so insistent that I take it back. Couldn’t have any intern of mine working with dumpster diving equipment, hm? That’d be embarrassing on my part.”

 

Peter laughed. But then his chest seized a bit. He looked around the room some more, eyes scanning and trying to make sense of it all. As if he wouldn’t ponder, but inhale it with his lungs and it smelled like home still – it was still home. So strongly, without hurt but complete comfort and he nearly forgot – he nearly forgot the bad thing and he ran his hand through his hair, chewing his lower lip as his eyes burned and he shut them, something crashing into him like a wave of relief but also grief and guilt. Mister Stark’s voice sounded concerned but Peter kept his eyes closed as he asked, “Are you okay? Kid if…if you want a new computer I can get you one.”

 

Peter actually let out a sound of humor, but shook his head. When his eyes opened they were damp, and it clung to his lashes while he found his voice, “No…No Mister Stark just…”

 

Exhale.

 

“Last time I was here I tried to kill myself.”

 

Peter knew he wasn’t this Mister Stark’s Peter. The last time that Peter had been home was before the Snap, he supposed. Before everything. He wasn’t this Mister Stark’s Peter but this was his Mister Stark now and he was going to have to come to terms with the intermingling of those two existences. Which meant this – this feeling and saying it out loud because it was easier than keeping it inside of him for so long and trying to smother it down with other emotions that would present themselves at the most inopportune moments.

 

Mister Stark’s eyes looked sorry.

 

To Peter’s surprise he nodded in understanding.

 

“Does it feel safe?” Tony asked, whispered, “Does it feel safe to you?”

 

Safe, safe – God, it was the safest Peter had felt in months.

 

Peter’s head nodded, “Yes…I feel safe. It’s still home, you know? It’s still mine and May’s. It just feels a lot different. It feels like a lifetime ago. Like that black hole was inside of someone else and now…Now it’s not the same. What I did was me, but it was a different me. One that couldn’t get rid of guilt.”

 

He paused then, “I still feel guilty. But…not about The Snap. About hurting myself.”

 

“I don’t think you should feel that way,” Tony replied, and he seemed to be grinding his teeth or something because his jaw was set oddly, “Not to say it’s not validated. But I mean…sometimes those dark places we get to, they’re out of our control. That’s not to say that – you know when I drank, and almost drank myself to death, I still feel guilty about that. About what it did to the people who loved me. And it doesn’t completely excuse my fault, but I also had to be…more patient with myself. Because I wasn’t well.”

 

Peter looked down and Mister Stark reached out, grabbing his shoulder, “Sometimes we’re not well, Peter. That’s why we have those people. The ones who stay. I mean, I had Pepper and I had Rhodey and they loved me.”

 

Peter’s voice cracked, and he looked at Mister Stark, a quick tear slipping through.

 

“I’m just kind of a burden and I’m sorry.”

 

There was this silence. As if he was stunned by Peter’s words, but Peter couldn’t place it exactly. His mind faltered, and he looked into Mister Stark face and sure enough, it looked like the words had blindsided him. Peter didn’t feel broken within them, it was an observation and not everything could be fixed in just a few days of recovery after being sucked into The Basket and knowing Mister Stark had to come in there to rescue him when no one should have been forced to do such a thing. The pills and all of it, and Mister Stark moved. Put a hand on the back of Peter’s neck and he ordered, “Look at me.”

 

Peter did. And he waited.

 

“You’re not a burden,” Mister Stark stated firmly, giving no room for argument, “You got that? You are _not_ a burden. And you never will be, everything you did – everything, we know why you did it. We know.”

 

The boy grimaced, fighting the urge to cry more but he didn’t.

 

Instead he asked in a shaky tone…

 

“How do you know when you’re well?”

 

Quiet and welcoming and knowing, Mister Stark’s mouth turned upward. Like that was the question of all questions, and patiently the response formed, “You know when you don’t dwell on it every waking minute.”

 

Peter didn’t have to ask what _it_ was.

 

He figured there were probably other rules that applied themselves. Rules that said other things along the lines of “it’s there but you deal with it” and everything. Peter appreciated the hand there, the one that grounded him. There was going to be a lot of time that passed before he felt completely well, but being in their home and feeling that familiar sense of safety repaired that brokenness inside of him. The pieces that had been left behind when he had been dragged from the bathroom floor and hadn’t been allowed to return to his bed, his games, his life of normalcy and Mister Stark had faded away to dirt.

 

Peter wasn’t alone anymore.

 

He tensed his fingers, and opened them – Other Peter’s memories of snapping his fingers sometimes showed up. Sometimes – only sometimes. Peter learned a lot from him and a part of him believed or hoped that Other Peter would be happy for his presence. Otherwise, he supposed he would have died in that hospital bed. The body was no longer working. He would take care of it, since it was his now. Not poison it, with thoughts and objects and Peter looked around his room one more time, the dust particles flickering in front of the curtain where light tried to come in.

 

They had stirred it up.

 

“I’ve been really homesick.”

 

Peter looked at the ceiling, where the stickers were that he and Ned had put up one night with the hopes that they were glow in the dark and they were not. The hole in the wall where his foot had accidentally gone through trying to kill a roach. The stain on his rug where his pen had broken. He had begged and begged and begged Aunt May and Doctor Strange to let him go home and now that he was there, it felt like he had never woken up in that bed in a whole other universe. He had still missed it so deeply it burned. There it was.

 

He found Mister Stark’s gaze, and he asked, “I get to stay now, right?”

 

As if the answer wasn’t present, but Peter had to make sure.

 

“Yes Peter,” Tony said softly, “This is your home. You can always stay.”

 

The floor swallowed him, enveloped. It wasn’t so scary anymore. Peter laughed, just a breath, like a brief chuckle and his mouth turned upward, eyes squinting as he blinked back tears. Disbelief, as he gave his room a once over again. Their lives had changed so drastically. So many more steps needed to be taken but this felt like a leap across the precipice that had been trying to consume him for so long. And now he was free of it. He would become free of the other things too when the time came. He just had to wait. Be patient and it would arrive like a healing over the sea. The war had ended and the boats had turned around.

 

There were only the calm waters, and glass reflecting off the night sky where heaven had been poked with a needle.

 

Peter lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Mister Stark’s shoulders, squeezing tightly. Tightly. Tightly. He was free, and so was Mister Stark.

 

They could both rest now.

 

Peter croaked, face collapsing into tears.

 

“We won, Mister Stark.”

 

…

 

END


End file.
